The Living and the Dead
by Flagg1991
Summary: Several months after zombies have taken over the world, Lynn, Lincoln, and Luan travel to Washington, D.C. in search of safety. Lynncoln. Cover by Raganoxer.
1. And Then There Were Three

_**Love of two is one**_

 _ **Here but now they're gone**_

 _ **Came the last night of sadness**_

 _ **And it was clear she couldn't go on**_

 _ **Then the door was open and the wind appeared**_

 _ **The candles blew then disappeared**_

 _ **The curtains flew then he appeared, saying don't be afraid**_

 _ **\- Blue Oyster Cult (Don't Fear the Reaper, 1976)**_

* * *

They were crossing the mountains separating West Virginia and Virginia when Lisa died - just east of a town called Brandywine that burned to the ground at some point during or after the plague: Charred buildings flanked fire-scorched streets, and gutted cars blocked Route 33 at weird angles. As far as Lynn could tell, it started at a BP station on a corner and spread out before dying down, probably during a rainstorm. That had to be it, or otherwise the vast forest surrounding the village would have gone up too.

The last night of Lisa's life, they camped in a roadside restaurant called Fatboy's Pork Palace: The mascot on the sign out front was a smiling pig wearing a bib and holding a fork in one hand and a knife in the other. Lynn didn't like him - he looked too happy, like he was mocking them, taking cruel delight in their misfortune. _Yummy,_ he seemed to say, _your tears taste soooo good._ Before going in, she unshouldered her Springfield 3006, aimed down the scope, and put a hole right between his eyes. _Take that, Fatboy._

Inside, a wood floored dining room stood empty save for a mess of tables and chairs, each of the former covered by a red and white checkered cloth. She and Lincoln moved them aside and laid out their sleeping bags while Luan tended to Lisa, who was in the final stages of infection, her body trembling with chills and her ashen face coated in sweat. Blood seeped through the bandage on the side of her neck, and every labored breath made her gasp in pain. If you moved her, she cried out - her muscles were cramping, Lynn knew all too well, and if you were to turn her over, her back would be covered in purple bruises that weren't bruises at all...it was blood pooling.

For all intents and purposes, Lisa was already dead. Literally.

No one knew how the plague worked - Lisa tried to study it as best she could on the road, but surviving took precedence. She figured out how it affected the body, but couldn't understand how the body could 'die' while the brain lived. _It's quite the head scratcher,_ she said. The brain, she said, was the last thing to go, but it didn't go entirely, which is how they were able to come back...which is why you had to kill the brain to kill the ghoul.

In the last days, before communications broke down, they said they were on the breakthrough of a cure, and when it all fell apart, Lisa insisted that they go to Washington. _Surely the government still exists,_ she explained. _There is a vast network of bunkers in the area designed and constructed during the Cold War with enough space for top military and civilian officials and their families. If anything remains, it will be there._

They left Royal Woods on June 29 - Lynn, Lisa, Luan, Lincoln, Luna, Lori, Lucy, and Leni. Mom, Dad, Lily, Lola, and Lana were already dead, chained in the basement because no one, not even Lisa, who constantly repeated _they aren't our loved ones anymore,_ could bring themselves to put them down. Lynn didn't like thinking of them, alone in the eternal darkness of the cellar, damp like a crypt, dead but alive, tormented by perpetual hunger. If she did, she'd cry, and as they marched east, it fell to her to be the strong one. Lori, the de facto leader, was the first to die, bitten on the arm in Toledo. Lynn chopped it off with a machete, but the infection was quicker. Leni was dead, killed on a supply run, then Luna and Lucy: They stopped in a small town on the Ohio/West Virginia border, and while Lucy and Luna were inside an abandoned grocery store, a flock of fresh ones, quicker and stronger than the older ones, swept through like ravenous flood water.

They had to leave them.

That was the hardest decision Lynn had ever made in her life, but she had the others to think about, and if they stayed, they all would have died too.

One-by-one, the Louds fell as they traveled east through Ohio and West Virginia until only Lynn, Lincoln, Luan, and Lisa remained. Four.

Soon to be three.

Pushing that thought away, Lynn went through the room and gathered all of the table clothes, then handed half to Lincoln, who took them without speaking. They'd done this a hundred times over the past month and a half: Cover the windows so they couldn't see you. The area was rural and Lynn hadn't seen many since Parkersburg - the ones she had seen were older, their movements slow, their bodies decaying in the summer sun. A few lie broken in the road, reaching with skeletal arms: When she saw them, she made sure to crunch them under the big tires of the Broncco.

Even so, there had to be some in the woods. They were within a hundred miles of the D.C. metro area, which, before the plague, was the sixth most populous city in the nation. The dead naturally spread out after the cities were overrun, searching endlessly for living flesh...flesh that was becoming harder and harder to find. Lisa estimated that there were less than five thousand people left alive in the United States out of a pre-plague total of 325 million.

Less than five thousand.

When the windows were covered, Lynn went into the dining room and knelt next to Luan, who held a damp cloth against Lisa's forehead, her eyes hollow and haunted and her lips quivering. Lisa lay on a heap of sleeping bags, her eye closed and her chest rapidly rising and falling. "How is she?" Lynn asked, even though she knew damn well how her sister was.

Luan opened her mouth to speak, but closed it again when the tears came. She covered her face with her hand, got to her feet, and fled, leaving Lynn alone with the dying girl. Sighing, Lynn looked away from Lisa's pale countenance, her eyes going to Lincoln, who sat against the wall wiping his M-16 with napkins from a dispenser, her eyes focused entirely on the task at hand and not on his dying sister.

She looked at Lisa again - her teeth chattered and her eyelids fluttered as though she were dreaming. Last night, at the end of her lucidity, she said she dreamed of Mom, Dad, and the others coming for her, looking through the windows with dead faces and cannibal smiles. _Don't let them get me,_ she said tiredly, _put me down. I don't want to be one of them._

Lynn said that she would, but she didn't know if she _could_.

Getting to her feet, she turned to Lincoln. "Can you sit with her?"

He didn't reply.

"Linc," she said sharply.

He lifted his head, and Lynn was not surprised that his eyes were red and wet. "I'm right here," he said.

She glanced at Lisa. Good enough, she figured. Grabbing her rifle from its spot on a table, she went after Luan, finding here out back, sitting on a step and hugging her knees to her chest. A wide grassy plain sloped up to dense forest, a warm breeze stirring the treetops. A cloud passed in front of the sun like a bad omen as Lynn stepped out, and the day darkened. Lynn scanned the treeline, but didn't see any of the dead. Slinging the rifle over her shoulder, she sat next to her older sister and stared into the woods, her heartbeat elevated. Before, she loved being outside, now, even though she never said, it scared her. "You should come back inside. It's not safe out here."

Luan sniffed wetly but didn't speak.

"I know you don't wanna see it," Lynn said, "I don't wanna see it either, but she…" she trained off, emotion welling in her throat. She swallowed thickly. "This is it," she said, "the end."

"I know," Luan moaned miserably. "I don't want to do this again." Her voice was a breathy, broken whisper that scoured Lynn's heart like broken glass. She put her hand on the older girl's shoulder and tried to find the right words to say, but they didn't exist - they hadn't before, and, she suspected, they never would.

Ahead, in the woods, something moved, and Lynn tensed. Luan sensed her apprehension, and looked up just as a ghoul shambled from the underbrush, its sole arm grasping and the bottom half of its face missing. Its gray, mottled flesh hung from its deteriorating frame in tatters and one of its feet dragged limply through the grass. Luan shivered, and Lynn blinked. "Go inside," she said.

Luan didn't move; she was frozen in fear like she always was when one of them appeared. Lynn tried not to think of her as dead weight, but in this one regard, she was.

The thing came closer - Lynn could smell it now, ripe and sickly sweet, like spoiled meat. Its wet gurgling moan found her ears, and sent shivers down her spine. You can only adapt so much to something so unnatural.

Getting slowly to her feet, Lynn pulled a long, wickedly sharp Bowie knife from the sheath on her belt. Luan came alive, then, and hurried back inside, pausing at the door and watching with terrorized eyes. Lynn wrapped her fingers around the handle and walked out to meet the thing, glancing around to make sure that there were no others.

The thing's muddled eyes widened as she drew closer, and its tongue, hanging limply against its ruined jaw, flopped obscenely back and forth. _Ummm...I can taste her skin already_. Lynn's heart raced and her breathing increased. It was within reach now, its dead fingers grasping at thin air. Bearing down on her teeth, she brought the knife up, then plunged it into the creature's forehead: The aberrant light in its eyes flickered, and it went limp, its body hanging from the blade. Lynn stepped back and yanked it out, letting the ghoul drop to the ground. She wiped the knife on her jeans and looked at Luan, who rested her head against the doorframe and wept, her eyes squeezed shut and her lips quaking.

The past two and a half months had been hard on all of them, but on Luan especially. Lynn watched as her sister slowly broke, the horrors of the new world weighing heavy upon her fragile psyche. Lynn loved her dearly - she was one of the only people left her in the world - but she was becoming more and more of a liability everyday.

And if it kept up, she was going to get someone killed.

In that moment, Lynn felt the overwhelming burden of responsibility on her shoulders - she was the strongest, the faster, the leader, and aside from Lincoln, who'd grown up a lot on the road, she was completely alone at the top. It was up to her to see them through.

She thought of Lisa and shuddered. _You really saw_ her _through, Loud._

Hot tears welled in her eyes, but she blinked them away and jammed the knife back into its holder. She strode across the yard and up the steps, her ponytail swishing determinedly. "Inside," she said flatly.

* * *

Night fell early in the mountains, the sky turning first soft purple then sack-cloth black, the low, rugged hills blending with the heavens like ink before darkness consumed them. The dead were more active after sundown, and normally Lynn wouldn't allow any lights or noise, but tonight was different: Lisa was in the final stages of infection, her jaw clenched and sweat standing on her wan face, and Lynn made an exception. She didn't want Lisa to die in the darkness...and though it killed her, she also wanted to look at her little sister for as long as she could.

Lincoln volunteered to keep watch so that he wouldn't have to watch Lisa. _I already said goodbye,_ he grumbled before grabbing the M-16 and going off. Lynn wanted him with her, needed him, but they needed a sentry more. When the last light of day faded, Lynn lit three Coleman lanterns and arranged them around Lisa's deathbed; feeble light danced across her face and made shadows on the wall. Luan sat on one side and Lynn on the other, the former looking washed out and hollow, the latter _feeling_ washed out and hollow.

During the evening, Lisa was in an out of consciousness, her lids fluttering open here and there and her eyes filled with bewilderment. "This isn't the suppositorium," she muttered deliriously at one point. 'And you're not Dr. Jacobs." Near eight by the digital watch on Lynn's wrist, she struggled to sit up, and Lynn gently laid her back down again.

"Shhh," she said, "i-it's gonna be okay." Her bottom lip started to quiver, and she clamped it so hard between her teeth that she tasted blood. She brushed Lisa's bangs out of her face and pressed her hand to the girl's forehead: She was hot, her body trying desperately to burn the infection out. Lynn had seen this again and again - a half dozen times too many - and she knew how it would end: Lisa would take one last, rattling breath then fall still. Five minutes later, or maybe as long as an hour, she would start to move again, and if Lynn let her, she would rise and seek living flesh.

She was suddenly very aware of the gun on her hip.

Lisa coughed deeply, and red tinged mucus plopped onto her chin. Lynn grabbed a damp cloth and wiped it away. Luan tucked her chin against her chest and squeezed her eyes shut; when she started to cry, Lynn flashed. "Suck it up." She slapped the cloth against the floor and balled her hands into fists, fury wafting through her like dragon's breath. She needed Luan to be strong, to be part of the team... _she needed help and support._ She couldn't do this alone.

In the firelight, darkness nestled upon Luan's features, and her tears sparkled like liquid diamonds. Lynn drew a deep breath through her teeth and glanced toward the front of the restaurant, where Lincoln stood by a window, the table cloth drawn back just enough to allow him a line of sight. He wore tan cargo pants with a dozen pockets, an olive green T-shirt, and a black vest - every time she saw him from the corner of her eye, she mistook him for someone else, someone older and harder than the brother she knew. She was sure he mistook her for someone else too - worry lines creased her face, especially around her mouth and eyes. She was sixteen but looked forty. Luan wasn't much better - she was seventeen but could pass for a hard thirty-eight.

She sighed and looked at Lisa - her jaw was clenched in pain and veins stood out on her neck. More blood seeped through the bandage, but there was little they could do at this point. End of the line. Heh. All of Lisa's life, her accomplishments, the things she worked for, the things she did and loved all lead to a dead end in some roadside rib joint in a podunk fucking town no one had ever heard of or cared about. This was it - for Lisa, nothing existed past this point. Not marriage, not children, not a successful career, _not growing up_. Lynn took a deep shuddery breath and glanced at Lincoln, who stood with his back to her, staring out into the night and seeing nothing.

"Lynn…" Lisa gasped, and Lynn turned to her. The little genius's face was sunken, already gray with death. Lynn tried to look into her eyes, but the misery she knew she would see would kill her.

She reached out and brushed the back of her hand across Lisa's cheek. "Shhh," she said, "y-you need your rest."

Lisa swallowed thickly and winced as a muscle spasm hit. Rigor mortis had been settling into her joints for three days now, and even the slightest movement set every neverending in her body afire with agony. "I'm going…" she panted, "...I'm going to attempt.." she turned her head to Lynn and moaned at the effort. "I'm going to try and...and not come back."

Lynn darted her eyes away and bore down hard on her teeth.

"I'm going to try...don't do it until you know."

Without looking at her, Lynn nodded. "I will," she whispered.

From there, Lisa lapsed into silence, her breathing slowing. She dropped into sleep, and Lincoln came back over. "There's nothing out there." He glanced at Lisa then quickly away.

"Alright," Lynn said.

Hanging his head, he went toward the back, disappearing into the kitchen.

At just after 10pm, Lisa's breathing quickened, and she came awale thrashing, her eyes distant and fever-scorched. Lynn took her hand and held it tight as she writhed, her chest blasting, her mouth opening and closing. A gurgle rose from her now plgem clogged throat, and when Lynn broke and looked into her eyes, they were filled with panic. Luan looked away and hugged herself; Lincoln came in from the kitchen, where he'd been for nearly an hour, and dragged himself over, shoulders slumped and head hung. Lynn met his gaze, and she smiled wanly. _Thank you..for being here._ He returned it. _You're welcome._ He knelt next to Luan and took Lisa's other hand, hitherto thrashing like runaway firehose. She clawed desperately at him, perhaps in search of salvation, but there was none. She trembled, coughed up more bloody mucus, then issued a long, low death rattle that Lynn knew she would hear in her sleep for weeks to come.

Luan broke down crying, and Lincoln fisted his hand to his mouth. Lynn simply let go of her sister's hand and drew the sheet over her head; it molded to her sharp profile, and for some reason, that struck Lynn as more gruesome than just leaving her uncovered.

She looked at Lincoln. "Help me with her."

Between them, they carried her through the kitchen and into the walk-in freezer, hot and rank since the power cut out at the end of June. They laid her out, and Lincoln sat a lantern on the floor then looked at Lynn with a raised brow. "I'm gonna wait," she said, "go take care of Luan."

Lincoln shot an uneasy glance at Lisa's body and hesitated.

"I got her," Lynn assured him.

He reluctantly nodded. "Alright." He turned, hesitated, then left. Lynn pulled the door closed behind her and sat heavily on the floor, her knees drawing to her chest. When Lisa came back - _if_ she came back - she didn't want Lincoln and Luan seeing her do what she promised Lisa she would.

Resting her arms on her knees, she stared at her sister, her heart pounding. _Please don't come back,_ she thought, _I don't want to do this, Lise._

She remembered Leni sobbing as she lay on the floor of a supermarket in Ohio, her stomach ripped open and her entrails hanging out. _It hurts so bad,_ she hitched, _make it stop._ There was only one way, and she couldn't do it - she froze and just stood there like a statue. Lisa finally did it for her, filling a syringe with a lethal dose of morphine and sinking it into her vein. _This will make it stop,_ she said with cold, clinical detachment...a detachment that she did not really feel, if the nightmares were anything to go by.

Before that it was Luna and Lucy. She never told the others, but as they pulled away, the living dead surrounding the Bronco and clambering to get in, she looked in the rearview mirror and saw their faces pressed to the window, both twisted in horror. Then Lucy disappeared as if dragged away, followed by Luna.

In her dreams, they came back for her, their eyes dark and soulless. _You left us,_ Luna said in a raspy cemetery voice.

 _I'm sorry,_ Lynn said in tears, _I had to._

 _You left us to die,_ Lucy added, _now we're going to kill you like they killed us._

When she woke, she was always panting and covered in sweat, and for a long time afterward, the spine tingling sensation of their presence _lingered_ , and though she laughed at the concept of souls and God and anything else _(but teeth)_ , as she lay on her side with her gun in her hand, she could believe that their spirits were watching over her... _hating_ her...straining to rip through the vail that once separated life from death.

They were out there. All of them. Leni, Lori. Lucy, Luna, somewhere right this very moment walking the earth, and if they retained memory the way Lisa hypothesized they did, they might be coming this way, following the path they had in life, slowly but inexorably shuffling east, and if they didn't rot on the way, one night Lynn would wake to find them standing over her..staring...grinning...reaching.

Across the room, the sheet covering Lisa twitched, and Lynn's breath caught in her throat. For a moment, it didn't come again and she was beginning to believe (hope) that it was her imagination, but Lisa's foot noticeably moved. Lynn watched, frozen, as the little girl's head moved slowly back and forth, the creases of the sheet pooled with shadows.

Stiffly, ponderously, she sat stiffly up like Dracula rising from his coffin. Tears filled Lynn's eyes and she took a deep, calming breath. Moving as woodenly as her sister, she unsnapped the holster and drew the Desert Eagle - it was heavy in her hand, far heavier than it had ever been before, and slimy too, like a living thing - an eel, maybe, an evil, murderous eel thirsty for blood.

The sheet fell from Lisa's face - her eyes bulged from their sockets, sickly and yellow, her bluish lips pressed tightly together. She swept the room with her undead gaze, and when it fell on Lynn, she opened her mouth - her teeth stood out prominently from her shrunken gums, and her pale tongue flicked like a hungry snake. Lynn pointed the gun at Lisa's hand, her left palm cupping her right. Tears trickled down her cheeks and her stomach knotted.

Lisa let out a low moan like November wind and started to get to her feet. Lynn pushed out all the memories she'd made with her little sister, all the times she teased her and hugged her and took her for granted and helped her and everything else...she pushed out the memory of her as a newborn, and as a toddler. She emptied her mind of it all.

And pulled the trigger.

* * *

 **There are numerous references to zombie movies, novels, media, etc in this story. There were a couple in this chapter alone. Ten points for each one you can spot. Also...I love how this website fucks my formatting up sometimes, like with the song quote in the beginning. I tried added spaces between the two separate verses and the band name at the bottom, but FFN would _not_ let me, so it looks like shit.**


	2. Into the Mountains

**Lyrics to** _ **Rockin' Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu**_ **by Johnny Rivers (1972)**

They left the next morning at dawn, when the sky was light pink and the birds sang happily from the trees. Before sunrise, Lynn dug a grave behind the restaurant - despite the relative chill of night, she was sweating profusely by the time she was three feet in, and paused to strip to her white under shirt. Lincoln drifted back and forth between her and Luan, standing guard over both - Luan fell into a fitful, nightmare haunted sleep long after the gunshot rang out, and she woke often with muttered moans trembling on her lips. Lynn considered giving her a sedative from Lisa's bag, but decided against it: She needed Luan to be as able and clear-headed as she could be in case something bad happened and they had to leave in a hurry.

Losing Lisa was a blow in more ways than one: She was the group medic and general intellect. She mended cuts and burns, picked the right plants to eat and use as medicine. Without her, Lynn felt so lost and overwhelmed that she might as well have buried Luan, Lincoln, and herself right along with her.

"Do me a favor," she said over her shoulder at one point. Her arms quivered with exhaustion and her back ached. "Get the Atlas from the Bronco and plan a route. I wanna leave as soon as we're done." Call it irrational, but she wanted as far away from this terrible place as possible, the sooner the better.

Lincoln nodded silently and went off, leaving her alone with the night.

Later, as the first amber rays of the new sun spread through the trees, she carried Lisa out from the freezer and to eternity, her legs dangling over one arm and her head resting limply against the other. Last night, she was hot with fever, now she was cold as clay, and heavy. She laid her in the hole, covered her with the sheet, and filled it in, wincing at every clump of dirt that broke over the little girl. _Sorry. Sorry. Sorry._

When she was done, she used the flat end to pat the earth down, went over to the treeline, and found two crooked sticks that she tied together in a cross with fishing line. She jammed it into the ground at the head of the grave, then went inside to fetch Lincoln and Luan.

The funeral was a quiet, somber affair, the three of them standing around the dirt patch and staring at the cross. After the events of the past two months - the collapse of society and the slow dwindling of their family - none believed in God, and neither had Lisa, so no words of everlasting life were spoken, no assertions that she was _in a better place_ were made. Luan tried to speak at one point, but broke down crying and buried her face in Lincoln's chest; he wrapped his arm around her shoulder and fought back his own tears. Lynn, for her part, was spent - she cried her pain as she dug the grave. Like eating while you cook.

Lincoln helped Luan to the Bronco, then helped Lynn pack their things up - they left the sleeping bag Lisa died in.

"What are we doing?" she asked Lincoln as she rolled up her bag. She knelt on the floor, still in just her jeans ad her tank top.

"We have two choices," Lincoln said, "we can follow 33 over the mountain, or we can backtrack to Sugar Grove and take Route 25."

Lynn nodded and paused, glancing over her shoulder. "Which way do _you_ think we should take?" she asked. She needed him to be strong just the same as he needed _her_ to be strong. She couldn't do this alone...she'd proven _that_ repeatedly.

For a moment he considered, then sighed. "I don't know. 33's the main road through the mountains, a lot of people probably took it toward the end to get away. It might be blocked. The other road might be clear, but if it isn't, we might not be able to turn around."

That made sense - many mountain roads are narrow and edged the abyss. If they came across stalled traffic, they'd be libel to roll the Bronco off the the side and kill themselves. 33 was wider, two lanes. If they had to backtrack, it would be easier. "33 first and 25 as a last resort?" Lynn asked.

Lincoln nodded. "Yeah, that."

She got to her feet and brushed past him. "Let's go.'

Outside, Luan sat in the back seat hugging herself and gazing absently out the window. "She's cracking," Lynn commented.

Lincoln unslung his bag and opened the hatch. "Aren't we all?" He shoved his bag in, then held his hand out to take Lynn's. She hesitated, then turned it over. He was right, they _were_ all cracking up - nightmares, overwrought nerves, mental wounds not healing...but as long as they survived, it didn't matter. As long as she could keep her brother and sister safe, she would be okay.

Lincoln slammed the door, then went around to the passenger side and climbed in, unshouldering his rifle and propping it between his legs. Lynn spared one final glance at Fatboy's, and her eyes went to that damn pig, a bullet hole between its beady little eyes. _How's your pork, you bastard?_

Behind the wheel, she pulled the seatbelt over her lap and clicked it in place, darting her eyes up to the rearview mirror: Luan stared into space, her eyes as faraway as Lisa's were before she died. She looked at Lincoln, who grimaced tightly. She wondered again if she should give her sister something, but again decided against it. She threw the Bronco into drive and pulled out of the lot fronting the restaurant, the tires crunching gravel and kicking up clouds of dust.

For the first mile, 33 kept straight and true, passing a run of shotgun shacks and elapdated trailers, then curved up to the left, beginning its ascent. A faded wooden sign on the right screamed that they were now entering the George Washington National Forest - raised yellow lettering over a portrait of an unsmiling Washington. Lynn wondered after the things he must have seen from his post by the roadway these past few months. In the last few weeks, the highways were crazily jammed, sometimes for miles on end. In mid-June, the government declared martial law and the military closed all of the major roads. Since leaving Royal Woods, they'd come across more back-ups than they could count, and a few times they even stumbled across military blockades - tanks, humvees, and helicopters abandoned by the wayside. She imagined he saw more than he ever cared to.

After the bend, Lynn eased up on the gas and swerved to avoid a station wagon sitting horizontally across the yellow lines, its roof rack filled with luggage and its doors standing open. She glanced at Luan again. No change.

Two miles later, the dark silence became too much to bear. "Get that tape out of the glovebox," Lynn said. Lincoln looked at her as though she were crazy. _Music?_ No, she _didn't_ want music, but she didn't want to stew either: If she did she'd go crazy.

Silently obeying, Lincoln opened the glovebox and rummaged through fast food napkins, registration papers, and roadmaps before pulling a plastic cassette case out and opening it. Ahead, a brown and gold police car with PENDLETON COUNTY SHERIFF across the door sat in the opposite lane, facing up the mountain. Lincoln shoved the tape into the deck, and upbeat piano driven rock filtered from the speakers. Lynn swung wide around a silver minivan resting on its side.

 _I wanna to jump but I'm afraid I'll fall_

 _I wanna to holler but the joint's too small_

 _Young man rhythm's got a hold of me too_

 _I got the rockin' pneumonia and the boogie woogie flu_

The road wound around a steep rock face. To the right, the world opened up - a panorama of blue mountains and clear, empty skies. Lynn glimpsed a river making its way through a valley, a small town built up along its banks. Around the bend, a camouflage hummer stood angled across both lanes, the ground littered with spent shell casings and dead bodies. Lynn decelerated and passed on the inside, the driver door coming close to scraping the rock. "I don't like the looks of this," she said. More bodies were scattered across the road on the other side, rotted by the sun and picked clean by wildlife.

 _Want some other's baby that ain't all_

 _I wanna to kiss her but she's way too tall_

 _Young man rhythm's got a hold of me too_

 _I got the rockin' pneumonia and the boogie woogie flu_

They were encountering too much traffic, and something told Lynn it would only get worse the higher they got. The mountain straddled the West Virginia/Virginia border, half in one state and half in the other. There were couple of fairly large towns on the Virginia side, and the DC/Maryland/Northern Virginia metro area was only a hop, skip, and a jump away. As the situation in the cities deteriorated, people flocked to the countryside for safety, but wound up bringing death with them. There were garbled reports in the last days of tent cities springing up in the Rockies and in the deserts of the Southwest only to be overrun as quickly as they appeared.

"It doesn't look good," Lincoln agreed.

The road curved again, and a lined of cars marched crookedly along the opposite lane. Lynn noted the bullet holes in the windshields and front ends - here and there dead bodies were slumped over the seats. A soldier lay sprawled on his back in their lane, and Lynn had no choice but to run him over, the sickening _thu-thunk_ of his torso being crushed under the wheels eliciting a miserable moan from Luan.

"Should we go back?" Lynn asked. She genuinely didn't know - there was a winch on the front _and_ back of the Bronco, so they could move just about anything out of their way if they had to. It would take time, but they had nothing _but_ time...and a vague hope that D.C. would provide safety...a hope that had cost most of Lynn's family their lives.

 _I wanna to squeeze her but I'm way too low_

 _I would be runnin' but my feet's too slow_

 _Young man rhythm's got a hold of me too_

 _I got the rockin' pneumonia and the boogie woogie flu_

"Should we go back?" she asked again, sharper this time.

"I don't know," Lincoln replied just as keenly and threw up one hand. "We've seen worse. We can probably do it."

Lynn glared at him, then turned back to the road. Twenty feet up, a section of the guard rail was missing, and a Humvee with a roof mounted machine gun sat in the middle of the road. She couldn't pass on the inside, and if she tried on the out, there was a very good chance they'd plunge over the side.

They'd have to move it.

Great.

Sighing, she let up on the gas even more until they were crawling, then pulled to a stop less than three feet from the Humvee's rear. She put the Bronco in park and threw open the door, giving Lincoln an expectant look. He grabbed his rifle and got out, a gust of warm wind rustling his cowlick. Lynn grabbed a pair of work gloves from the console and got out, going around to the front and standing next to Lincoln with her hands on her hips. "Stand watch," she said and glanced at him, squinting against the glare of the early morning sun.

Without word, he hefted the M-16 and started walking along the gravel shoulder to see what waited around the next bend. Lynn turned, grabbed the metal hook, and pulled it from its coil. She knelt, threw a nervous glance over her shoulder, then, holding the winch in one hand, she pressed her stomach flat to the pavement and wiggled under the Humvee. She'd done this a thousand times since leaving Royal Woods, and now she worked with cool and certain efficiency, looping the line around the rear axle and snagging the hook back on the cord; she gave it a test pull, it held, and she nodded.

Crawling out from underneath, she took the gloves off and shoved them into her back jeans pocket, then went around the driver side of the Humvee. Lincoln was up the road a half mile, staring beyond the next bend. She put her fingers in her mouth and whistled; he turned, and she gestured him to come back.

Figuring there might be something in the Humvee they could use, she pressed her forehead against the glass and held her hands up on either side to shield out the glare of the sun. There were no ghouls inside, so she pulled back, opened the door, and climbed in, one knee planting into the seat. She searched methodically from front to back, finding first a Sig P320 pistol, which she slipped into the small of her back, then a a fist aid kit under one of the seats. Lincoln opened the rear passenger door and joined the hunt, whistling after a moment. "What'cha got?" she asked and slipped between the front seats. Lincoln knelt in front of a box, and when he moved, she saw it: Packages upon packages of MREs - meals ready to eat. She came over and dropped to her knees next to him. She picked up one of the pouches and examined it. "Chilli with beans and cornbread," she said with an appreciative nod. "Nice find, Linc."

"There's enough in here to feed an army," he deadpanned...and for some reason Lynn found that so funny she burst out laughing. Lincoln started laughing too, and like a fire feeding on oxygen, it grew until they were both crying, all of the stress, agony, and horror of the past twenty-four hours...of the past two months...coming out in the form of shrieking laughter.

When the storm passed, Lynn shook her head and sniffed. "Feed an army. Heh. You're a loser." A sudden and overwhelming affection for her brother came upon her like a tidal wave, so intense it brought tears to her eyes.

He and Luan were it.

She knew that the moment that thing bit Lisa on the neck, but only now, looking at her brother's tired half-grin and weary eyes did it fully sink in. The urge to sweep him into her arms and hug him flowed through her, and she almost did it. _I can't lose him,_ she thought, _or Luan._ Over the past three months, she'd lost everything and everyone she had ever loved, her life whittled down to a single boy and a single girl - if she could, she'd hold them close and never let go.

Unfortunately, she couldn't. They still had 160 miles ahead of them before…

Lynn frowned. Before what?

Since leaving Royal Woods, she held the promise of Washington the way a little girl might a teddy bear on a dark and stormy night; if only they could get there, things would be normal again. She and her family would be safe, and they could begin to pick up what remained of their lives. They would be fewer in numbers and not without wounds, but they would have each other. With every sister who fell by the wayside, that hope grew just a little dimmer. Now there were only three of them, and as they drew closer to the urban sprawl along the Potomac, the number of ghouls would only increase. They say it's always darkest before the dawn - in this case, it was most dangerous before the safety.

If there _was_ safety

She shoved that thought aside. _We're not doing this again,_ she told herself, _not right now._ Instead, she took a deep breath. "Grab that box and come on."

At the back of the Bronco, Lynn opened the hatch and Lincoln slid the box into a gap, grunting and straining to make it fit. Lynn's eyes drifted to the rolling vista in the south, green, gentle slopes and rising knobs crowded by stately trees. How many miles could you see with the naked eye? Five? Ten? What about from the summit?

And, God, what waited at the summit?

When Lincoln slammed the door, she jumped a little. "See anything out there?" he asked and twisted around to follow her gaze.

"Just empty world," she said.

Behind the wheel, she started the engine and turned the radio off. Reaching under the dash, she cranked the knob on the face of the CB and raised the volume - the hiss of dead air. She kept the CB off for the most part, the endless pool of static depressing. At least twice a day, though, she put it on and hoped for the faint murmur of distant voices like the ones they heard back in Ohio - whoever it was, they were so far away that their words were barely audible over the white noise.

She glanced in the rearview mirror; Luan's head rested against the window, her eyes closed and her lips slightly parted. Good. Lynn hoped she slept long and deep.

Throwing the Bronco into reverse, she glanced at Lincoln, who stood on the side of the road. He nodded, and she backed slowly up, the Bronco dragging the Humvee ponderously from its spot, the engine straining and whining. God, please, don't break down. Please, please, please.

When there was enough space to pass, she cut the ignition while Lincoln went over to disconnect the towline. Her heart leapt into her throat, and she jumped out, grabbing the 30.06 as she went. Linc, you gotta wait for a watch; no matter how safe you think you are...you're not.

Fighting back a stern rebuke, she held the rifle crossways and walked up to the Humvee's back bumper - Lincoln's legs jutted out from underneath. She glanced up the slanting highway. "How'd it look up there?" she asked, a gust of already heated wind whipping through her bangs.

"All clear," Lincoln said. He slid out with the hook in his hand; Lynn took it and coiled it back around the winch while Lincoln got up and dusted himself off.

"Let's hope it stays that way," she said and patted the Bronco's hood.

It didn't.

Three miles later, they came to a smash-up that blocked the way - three cars bumper to bumper to bumper, the front end of the latter two crumpled and the back end of the first caved inward. Lynn sighed in frustration and pulled to the shoulder, parking along the guardrail, then got out, Lincoln climbing over the console and following because if he went out his door, he'd fall a million feet to his death, and considering the mood Lynn was in, she'd follow.

Standing side-by-side, she and Lincoln examined the damage. "Looks like it we pull one, the others will come with," she said.

Lincoln shrugged. "They might." He glanced down the tilted road which made an soft C-shape from where they stood. "We _could_ just push them," he said and looked at her. "Let gravity do our light work."

"We can't push all three," she countered.

He sighed. "Yeah. I guess not."

They were forced to use the winch again, Lincoln hooking it to the first car and standing aside as Lynn backed up, pulling forward; it separated from the car behind it with an eerie shriek of rending metal. They repeated the process with the second car. "We can push this one," Lincoln said and nodded at the third. By now they'd been on the mountain close to three hours, and dark storm clouds were beginning to amass in the west like a swarm of demonic locust. The first two cars were parked in front of the Bronco, their noses facing up the mountain.

Lynn looked anxiously at the advancing storm clouds, then at Lincoln. "Alright."

They got behind, one on either side, and pushed, knees bending, teeth grinding; thick dust coated the frame, and their hands slipped. Shortly, the front tires began to turn, and the car drifted forward, picking up speed as it went. They stood back and watched it crash into the guardrail, its rear wheels lifting momentarily off the ground. "I wonder how much force it'd take to break through," Lincoln said.

Lynn nodded to the cars lined up in front of the Bronco. "Take one of those and find out."

The wind picked up and rain droplets pelted Lynn's face. God, moving cars in a downpour sounded like exactly what she _didn't_ want to do.

Four miles later, they reached the summit - a wide, flat plateau overlooking vast expanses of forest and brooding skies. Lightning crackled in the coming tempest, and peals of thunder rolled across the heavens like the angry rumbles of a god awakened by the antics of a fallen world. On the right, a white two story house with clapboard siding and a covered porch stood between the road and a sheer drop, its roof and shutters deep green. On the left, a blue sign with white cursive writing rose from tall grass. A painting of a cardinal perched on a flowering dogwood graced the upper right hand corner.

WELCOME TO VIRGINIA.

Ahead was -

"Son of a _bitch_ ," Lincoln muttered.

Near Columbus, they encountered the largest traffic jam any of them had ever seen: All four lanes of the interstate were jammed solid, and overturned cars littered the grassy median. Though Route 33 was half as wide, the snarl here was somehow worse. Two olive green Humvees with roof mounted 50 cals sat nose-to-nose across the highway, and beyond them was an apocalyptic din of stalled vehicles packed three deep in places, cars pressed tight against both the rockface and the guardrail: The people inside would have had to crawl through a window to get out. Not that they had the chance: Many windshields were shattered, grills and hoods pockmarked by long ago gunfire. A few bodies lie sprawled on this side of the roadblock, and on the other, Lynn glimpsed at least two slumped out driver side windows.

She pressed the brake and put it in park, then looked at Lincoln. "Yeah," she drew, "we're not getting past that." From here she could see at least a mile of highway snaking along the mountain, and the jam went all the way back.

"No, we're not," Lincoln agreed and slumped back in his seat with a sigh. The rain picked up and started to fall in earnest, droplets splattering the windshield and drumming on the roof. Thunder rumbled, and a bolt of lightning split the day, making Lynn jump.

This was bullshit: Now they had to backtrack all the way to Sugar Grove, some twenty miles. Going down the mountain would be easier than coming up was, but they still had to go slow. Then there was Brandywine...just the thought of seeing it again, of seeing that horrible place where her little sister young life ended, her eyes big and fearful and her hand clutching desperately _please don't let me die alone_ filled Lynn with dread. Beyond that, the road to Sugar Grove was littered with stalled vehicles, which meant lots of crawling and swerving. By the time they got there, half the day would be gone, and God alone knew what kind of condition Route 25 was in.

Thunder crashed.

Plus the storm.

Lynn glanced at her brother...then at the house. Lincoln followed her gaze. "What's one day?" she asked.

Lincoln thought a moment, then shook his head. "Nothing."

He paused.

"Nothing at all."


	3. The House on the Hill

**Lokistar568: I have no interest in doing another Friday the Loudteenth story.**

* * *

A faded wooden sign hung over the door, white lettering on a green background: TRANS-APPALACHIAN MUSEUM. Canned rocking chairs flanked one side, while a totem pole stood on the other, strange and grotesque faces frozen in pained smiles. A body was sprawled before one of the chairs, a gun clutched loosely in one curled hand.

Inside, a narrow set of stairs led to the second floor, and a parlor opened off to the right, glass display cases pushed against florial papered walls. Tables loaded with papers, radio equipment, and supplies occupied the middle of the room - a makeshift military command center in the last days, it seemed. Lynn clicked on a flashlight and carved thick shadows, dust motes dancing in the beam like pagan worshippers around a fire. Framed black and white photos on the walls, another display case filled with arrowheads and minie balls left over from the Civil War.

Past the stairway, a long hall led to the back of the house - Lynn pointed the flashlight and caught a glimpse of linoleum floor and countertop. She drew her Desert Eagle and crossed her wrists, aligning the beam and the gun. "We'll check in there first," she whispered and nodded toward the parlor. Next to her, Lincoln clutched the M-16, the under barrel flashlight attachment on. Normally, they would split up to clear a building, something they had done countless times in the past, but right now, Lynn didn't want him by himself. She wanted to be with him...just in case.

In the parlor, Victorian style furniture hunkered against the darkness, and a stone fireplace teemed with gloom. At the table, she bent and studied a giant map of the area: Red lines had been drawn through several roads, denoting roadblocks, she assumed. She scanned it until she found Route 25, a long, twisting zig-zag worming through a patch of green.

Nothing.

Next, they checked the kitchen: Gloomy sunlight streamed through the window over the sink, revealing stacks of unwashed dishes, empty cans and boxes on the counter, and a gun sitting next to the fridge, from which wafted the stench of rotting food. Boxes of MREs lined one wall, and Lincoln went over to them. "More chili, taco, pot roast...we can have a regular Thanksgiving feast with all this." He kicked one of the boxes and turned.

 _What do_ we _have to be thankful for?_ Lynn thought bitterly. Virtually everyone in their family was dead, the world they knew was gone, and every second of every day was a constant fight for survival.

And you know what?

It might all be for nothing; they might get to Washington only to find more of the same - death, destruction, and desolation, the three Ds that characterized the new world, or at least what they'd seen of it.

Lynn sighed. _Don't do this._

Once you let hopelessness in, it took root and spread like cancer, and what does cancer do? It kills you, that's what. Her coach back in Royal Woods used to say _if you don't have hope, you have nothing_. How can you play your best if you're stuck in a defeatist mindset? You can't. She knew that as surely as she knew her own name, but when everything around you _dies_ , keeping hope is like trying to keep a tiny flame alive against a cold, needling wind.

Lisa was right - she had to be. The government wouldn't let itself collapse, politicians wouldn't let themselves and their families die. There _were_ bunkers, she knew that even before Lisa brought it up, and there _would_ be people in them, order, sanity, safety.

There _had_ to be.

After clearing the first floor, they moved onto the second, Lynn taking the lead and wishing she could take the rear too so that Lincoln was protected on all sides. Four doors opened off the hall, one to a bathroom, one to an office, and two to storerooms heaped with boxes and empty display cases like the ones downstairs. "I think we're good," Lynn said, releasing a pent-up breath she didn't even know she was holding. Lincoln relaxed and held the rifle up so that the barrel was pointing at the ceiling. Thunder rumbled and rain sluiced down a window at the end of the hall through which pale, muted light fell. "We'll set up in the parlor," she said. She liked camping near the exit in case they needed to make a quick getaway. She didn't think they'd encounter any trouble, though - the mountains seemed relatively free of the dead.

You never knew, though.

They turned and started to leave, but froze when something thumped against the ceiling. Lincoln jerked the M-16 up, and the light revealed a square hatchway to the attic, a cord rope swinging back and forth like a pendulum.

 _Thump!_

The cord swung faster.

Something was up there.

Lynn swallowed hard, her heart beginning to race. Her grip on the gun tightened; she exchanged a worried look with Lincoln, then they both turned their attention to the cord. It could have been nothing more than a raccoon - animals were already moving into buildings and towns in the absence of human life, and in another few years, nature itself would follow, plants and vegetation overgrowing highways and skyscrapers.

 _Thump-thump-thump._

If it was a raccoon, it was a _big_ one.

And it was coming closer, its footfalls tracking across the ceiling like the hoofbeats of one of the four horsemen. Lynn pursed her lips in thought. If it was a ghoul, all they'd have to do was lower the stars and it would come to them. If it was an animal, it probably wouldn't.

Clicking off her light, Lynn shoved it into the waistband of her jeans; Lincoln trained his beam on the door, the gun steady in his hands. Gripping the Desert Eagle, her index finger caressing the trigger, she reached up, caught the cord, and yanked - the hatch came down and a rickety folding ladder unfurled like a red carpet to hell. She jumped back and brought the pistol up, holding her breath so that her aim would be even: Light bathed a section of attic wall, bare boards and fuzzy pink insulation. The thumping drew closer, and a shadow flickered, shapeless at first then slowly morphing into a human silhouette. With it came the sickly stench of decomposition that Lynn had grown so accustomed to over the past two months. Her nostrils pinched and one corner of her mouth turned up in a sneer of disgust.

With a low, hissing moan, the thing appeared, and Lynn's heart sank. A little girl, three feet tall and clad in a dirty pink dress, tangled blonde hair dirty and matted, Her skin was black, blue, and beginning to slip from her bones in sagging folds. Her eyes were milky white with death, her lips twisted in unholy hunger. She looked like Lola.

She _was_ Lola.

Lynn's blood turned to ice and her muscles locked up. Her mind went back to Lola and Lana dying together in bed, holding each other and crying while Lisa tried desperately to develop an antidote...then destroyed her lab in fury when she couldn't. Lola came back while Lynn and Lincoln were moving her to the basement, and her eyes were the same - the low, rattling hiss issuing from her throat identical.

"Lynn!" Lincoln cried.

She came back to herself and realized in a flash that the little girl was moving forward, tumbling over the edge and dropping, arms out and mouth open, flying at her like a giant, skin-hungry bat. For a moment, the world slowed to a crawl...then exploded when Lincoln crashed into her and tackled her against the wall, the M-16 clattering to the floor and the beam shaking crazily. The girl slammed into Lincoln's shoulder, knocking him aside and upsetting his balance; he fell and landed on his side, the zombie on top, reaching, hissing in undead excitement. Reacting quickly, he shot out his fist and cracked her in the side of the head while shoving her away with the other. She fell back against the wall and started to get back to her feet. Trembling, Lynn could only watch as Lincoln shot up, pulled the Glock from his side, and shot her in the head, the report like cannon fire in the silence. Blood and bits of rotting brain splattered the wall, and she fell limply back in a sitting position, then slumped to one side, leaving a greasy black smear across the paper.

Lincoln, panting and shaking, turned to her, and when she saw the accusation in his eyes ( _you almost got me killed_ ), she broke down crying. She choked. She choked _bad_. She opened her mouth to tell him how sorry she was, but she cried even harder.

For a moment, Lincoln stared at her, then his features softened and he went over, dropping to one knee and laying a tentative hand on her shoulder. "Hey," he said softly, his voice halting and awkward,"i-it's okay. I'm fine."

No thanks to _her_ \- he almost died because she locked up...just like she did when Leni lay dying, just like she did when she left Lucy and Luna to die...her own sisters.

She wept even harder, and Lincoln took her in his arms, pressing her face to his chest and rubbing a comforting circle between her shoulder blades. "I'm sorry, Linc," she finally managed in a broken whisper.

"It's fine," he insisted, but it wasn't: She had a lapse of strength, and in this world, weakness, no matter how brief, is fatal...for you _and_ the people you love.

She sniffed and reasserted control of her nerves. She couldn't be weak. She had to be strong. Lincoln needed her. Luan needed her. "I'm sorry," she repeated, her voice calmer, more steady. She pulled away from him and got to her feet. "It won't happen again," she vowed, then looked at the dead girl. "We should check for others."

She went first, climbing the ladder and scanning the darkened attic with the beam of her flashlight. When she didn't see anything, she went up and Lincoln followed.

There was indeed another one, a man; they found him nestled in a corner behind a large box, the kind refrigerators came in. He was so decomposed that when Lynn walked up, all he could do was turn his head and reach impotantly out, skin hanging from his arms in blackened tatters. Lynn shoved the gun into its holster and pulled out the knife - using a knife required more mental strength, and after what happened in the hallway, she needed to prove, to Lincoln and to herself, that she could be strong. Gritting her teeth, she brought it up and then down in the center of his head. His feeble thrashing ceased, and the unholy life ran out of him. She yanked the blade out and wiped it on her jeans, then turned to Lincoln, who had walked up while she was busy. She still couldn't bring herself to look him in the eye. "Anything else?"

"No."

She nodded. "Good. Let's go get Luan."

* * *

They huddled in the parlor after tacking thick blankets over all the first story windows. Lynn wedged a chair under the handle of the front door and had Lincoln help her move the fridge in front of the back. She still didn't feel entirely safe, but then again, she never did, and hadn't in so long that she could barely remember what it felt like. When she sat down, she tried to recall it, something she didn't do very often, it, and her whole life before the dead began to walk was blurry and indistinct, like a shape seen through dense fog. Her teams, her friends, her everything might as well have been someone else's, belonging not to her but to a girl in a once-seen Nick at Nite rerun.

The visions of each one of her sisters dying, though, nearly a half dozen of them on her watch, were crystal clear, however, and as she sat with her back against the wall, her face cast in the flickering glow of a Coleman lantern, she drew a weary sigh and looked at her siblings: Lincoln across the room in a pose similar to hers, an MRE open on his lap, and Luan, sitting amidst a heap of sleeping bags and paging through a book she found called _A Pictorial History of the West Virginia Panhandle._ She was more animated after her nap, and even ate a little, for which Lynn found herself so grateful she felt like crying.

 _I'm so emotional today. I must be about to start my period._

Heh. Funny how nature doesn't stop. Human beings do, civilizations do, but not Mother Earth. Such a routine, natural function, the lining of the uterus shedding to facilitate impregnation, but under the circumstances, strange and sad too. Her body didn't know the world had ended, that the likelihood of her ever settling down and having children was so small it might as well not even exist. It just kept doing its thing, cycling like the sun and the moon in anticipation of one day being fertilized. Luna's body did the same thing, even as she was ripped apart by the living dead...dumbly plodding on with single-minded determination. Lucy's body didn't even have a chance to start.

Hot, stinging tears filled her eyes, and she bowed her head so that no one would see.

It was her fault - especially Lucy, Luna, Leni, and Lisa. She was in charge when they fell, she stood up and started giving orders, she took the reigns and the responsibility that went with them because that's who she was: Lynn Loud Jr. She grabbed the bull by the horns every single day of her life, and when someone needed to step in and steer the ship, she was right there. She didn't know the enormity of her decision, though, didn't know that everything fell squarely to her. And because of it, four of her sisters were dead, and her last remaining family would probably die too.

 _I imagine Washington will be filled with the undead,_ Lisa said once, _getting in will present a problem. We'd do well to establish a base camp and send two or three in, as a smaller group can move and react much quicker. Once they've found help, they can send for the rest of us._

She looked at Lincoln - he shoved a cracker into his mouth and chewed. His eyes were hard, his face somehow rougher. She'd leaned on him since the beginning, and she was confident that if she could keep it together and have his back, he'd make it through. Luan, on the other hand...she worried Lynn. And even Lincoln...she trusted him, but what good is that when you're in an unfamiliar city surrounded by millions of those things? He was fast, he was strong, and he was smart, but even the best of the best can be easily overwhelmed.

Should they even risk it?

The thought struck her like a bullet from the dark, and she stiffened a little.

They could wait...find somewhere, maybe even here...and give it a few months, maybe even until next spring, once the snow thawed. Lisa did say that given the rate of decomposition, the dead would cease to be a significant threat within eight months to a year.

The thing was: They _were_ a threat, as Lynn had learned again and again. One wrong move out here, and you were dead. In this house, they would be in constant danger. No, they _had_ to get to Washington - it was safe there. There were people and food and doctors and society. They could start over, just the three of them, and maybe, outside of the nightmares, they could forget what happened. She and Luan could find husbands, and Linc a wife, and they could have lots of kids and devote every thought, every emotion, and every moment to _them,_ and not to the dark, distant memory of death along the highway.

Lynn liked that idea very much. They could make it, even if it was just her and Linc - they could set Luan up in an attic somewhere, go in themselves, then send help back. Or at the very least scout a safe passage.

Presently, Lincoln finished eating and got to his feet, then scooped the empty package off the floor and carried it into the kitchen. When he came back, he went over to the table, grabbed the map, then walked over to her and sat with a sigh. She sat up straighter and laid a protective hand on his leg. _I'm so sorry and I promise I won't let anything bad happen to you._ He spread it as far as it would go and laid it across their laps: Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia stared up at them, a body served by a thousand highways like arteries. And like too many arteries from before the plague, many of them were clogged.

He found Sugar Grove and traced a finger along the squiggly line representing Route 25. Lynn leaned over his shoulder and watched, his smell filling her nostrils, not pleasant but not entirely unpleasant either. Warm, comforting, safe. "We'll come out downwind of Harrisonburg," he said and tapped a spot between Harrisonburg and Staunton. "We can take Route 12 across, then Route 17 north." He pushed his finger across the center of Virginia then angled it up in a steep, sweeping arc, his nail brushing over town names that meant nothing to Lynn, but probably did to someone else: Fredericksburg, Stafford, Summerduck, Bealeton, Opal, Warrenton. Washington was a heart to which all the arteries fed, a tangled confusion of state routes, local roads, and five different interstates. It looked so big…

And dangerous.

Both of them started when Luan sat on Lincoln's other side. She leaned over and studied the map, her brow creasing in concentration, then looked up at Lincoln. "How much farther?" she asked.

"'Bout a hundred fifty miles," he said. "Depending on how bad the roads on, we can be there by the end of the week." He scanned the layout and frowned. "We can't take any of the main roads, those'll be be blocked for sure. Once we get close, all of them might be impassable, in which case we might to have to go on foot."

An arrow of dread shot through Lynn's heart. The topic had come up before, but she pushed it away to deal with later...now later was uncomfortably close. On foot, they were exposed and vulnerable; on foot they could be all too easily caught and ripped apart.

Fear rippled across Luan's face, but she didn't say anything. Lincoln looked up from the map then back, a thoughtful expression on his face. "Actually, we might be better off coming in from the north." He pointed at the northwest portion of the city. "It's not as built up. In the south you have Alexandria, Fairfax, and Manassas, which are all pretty big on their own. This looks like the path of least resistance. Still not exactly rural, but more manageable."

Lynn examined the map and nodded. He was right, there were more bigger communities outlying Washington to the south than to the north. There was Bethesda, which looked fairly large, but there was a good ten miles between them; Fairfax bled into Alexandria and Alexandria bled into Washington, forming a seething mass of streets, alleys, and dark corners that potentially harbored danger.

She was a little surprised that Lisa never thought of that. Then again, back home she and her sisters called Lincoln 'the man with a plan' because he was always thinking ahead. That seemed so impossibly long ago now, a blip on the other side of a gaping chasm of time. Looking at him now, it was hard to believe that he was the same boy. Heh. Boy. That word no longer even applied to him - he was a man in all but years alone. His face was thinner and more rugged, his arms more defined from months of manual labor, his eyes no longer glinting with boyish light but flat, jaded. His voice was deeper, too, a symptom of that peculiar thing called puberty, but Lynn imagined the life they'd lead over the last two months had at least a _little_ to do with it, his body rushing the process because, in a way, it knew he needed to grow up fast.

That, like many other things, struck Lynn as so unfair it hurt. He should be playing his dumb video games and holding hands with Ronnie Anne Santiago, but here he was, after the end of the world, a man before his time, his parents dead, most of his sisters dead, his friends dead, fighting in a war with no name and struggling just to stay alive. Lynn's arm twitched with the urge to wrap themselves around him and hold him close, to be everything that she could possibly be for him, and for Luan, and maybe they could be everything they could for _her_.

"Makes sense," she said now, then: "When we get there, where do we go?"

Lisa answered that question before they left Royal Woods, but she wanted Lincoln's opinion - and if it was different, she would accept it no questions asked.

"The White House," he said, echoing their little sister. _There is a bunker beneath the presidential domicile, and the building itself is most likely still operative in some capacity._ During the last days, there were reports of soldiers deserting their posts (and being executed if caught), and Lisa hypothesized that the military had ceased to exist _except close to the president and his cabinet_.

"The White House it is," she said.

* * *

Afternoon dragged into evening, and dusk fell across the land like a thick blanket. The rain let up just before nightfall, and the western sky blazed orange as darkness swept through the forest. Lynn lit three lanterns and positioned them around the parlor, then sat at the table before the radio: It was big, boxy, and green with more knobs, dials, face plates, and buttons than she knew what to do with. She found one marked POWER and turned it, a loud, abrasive hiss flowing from the speaker. She tuned it, but heard nothing up and down the band but the same white noise that she heard on the CB.

If you don't have hope, though, you have nothing at all. She dragged the handset over, depressed the button, and leaned hesitantly into the microphone. "I-Is anyone out there?" Luan, picking at an MRE with a grimace of distaste, looked up. Lincoln, half standing with his butt perched on the edge of an end table, lifted his brows and glanced back to the atlas in his hands. He'd been studying it for nearly an hour now, memorizing every town, road, trail, and tree between here and Capron Bridge - planning routes, alternate routes, emergency routes: If anything went wrong on the way, he wanted to know exactly where to go and what to do.

"It's useless," he said.

Lynn let go of the button and listened for a reply, but the static was alone. She moved the dial down the band and tried again. "If anyone can hear me, please answer." She let go and listened.

Nothing.

"This thing's powerful enough to reach Washington, right?" she asked Lincoln.

He glanced up and furrowed his brow in thought. "It should be," he said. "I doubt there's much radio traffic, though."

She nodded. True. There were multiple bunkers, though; there _had_ to be a line of communications between them.

Unless everyone was dead.

A pang of anxiety rippled through her chest, and she swallowed. An image flashed across her mind: A bunker teeming with the living dead, shuffling endlessly back and forth, bumping dumbly into the walls and each other, trapped inside by the airlock doors and thick blast-proof ramparts that once protected them. No, not a bunker, a crypt. On a desk, she saw a radio and heard her voice, watched in horror as one of the things went over, picked up the handset, and replied. _Come here, little girl; we're all sooo hungry._

She shook her head and the terrible vision dissipated like smoke. There was probably another reason why no one answered. Maybe lines were down somewhere - you have to maintain channels of communication, right? They were like...like pipelines, a vast network with a thousand different moving parts that require constant care and supervision.

Like the power grid. Once the technicians left their posts, it was literally only a matter of hours before it started breaking down. Were the airwaves the same? She didn't know, but she figured they must be.

Sighing, she pushed the handset away and sat back in the chair, her eyes restlessly scanning the room. Firelight bathed the walls faded orange, confining shadows to nooks and corners, where they awaited their inevitable return to dominance.

Later, she got up, grabbed an MRE from one of the boxes in the kitchen, then sat against the wall and ate slowly, the food bland and tasteless but the act of eating, of being preoccupied soothing. It gave her purpose, and the longer she did it, the longer she wasn't stewing in self-doubt. When she was finished, she took a flashlight and went off to explore, starting with the display cases in the parlor then moving onto the one in the hall. Junk. Knives, beads, pieces of history that might mean something to someone but not to her. In the kitchen, she rummaged aimlessly for anything they could take with them. She found rows and rows of canned food in a pantry, and she took a bunch out, sitting them on the table.

"What are you doing?"

She started and dropped a can of beets to the floor; it rolled away and bumped into the baseboard. Lincoln stood in the threshold, arms crossed casually. "Collecting food," she said, then went over and picked the beets up.

"We _have_ plenty of food," Lincoln said.

"We don't have -" she looked at the cans and read one of the labels - "mixed fruit in sauce."

Lincoln opened his mouth to speak, but tilted his head to one side in acquiescence instead. "Can't argue there." He came in and snatched a can from the table, his eyebrows lifting. "Beef stew. Better than that MRE crap."

Lynn snorted. "I thought you liked those," she said playfully. She was at the pantry now, lifting up on her tippy toes to reach a big metal can with PUDDING across the front, her mouth already watering at the promise of sweet, chocolatey goodness.

"I do," he said, "better than nothing."

Her fingertips brushed the sides of the can, and she plastered her tongue to her upper lip in determination. When she got it, she turned and sat it on the table with a big grin. "I got something much better than beef stew." She patted it like a favorite pet, and Lincoln cocked his head to the side to read it. His eyes widened, and for the briefest of moments, that boyish, carefree twinkle was back.

In the parlor, she, Lincoln, and Luan ate bowls of pudding and talked - at one point they even laughed. If you took a step back and squinted, it was almost like old times.

Almost.


	4. On the Road Again

**STR2D3PO: Certainly not from season four, episode nine of** _ **The Walking Dead.**_ **See, in mine, Lynn shares the pudding, in TWD, Carl hogs it all to himself like an inconsiderate pig.**

 **HangingSoul: What would your version be about?**

* * *

They left half an hour after the first rays of the sun crested over the mountaintops, its light spreading through the trees like creeping fingers. Going down the mountain was easier than coming up, and in less than fifteen minutes they were passing Fatboy's - Lynn glanced in the rearview mirror and found the rugged cross that marked Lisa's final resting place. Her heart twinged, and she turned back toward the road.

In the passenger seat, Lincoln held the M-16 between his legs, the barrel pointed at the ceiling. He wore jeans and his vest over a black T-shirt that clung tight to his chest. He stared out the window and watched the world flash by, his face inscrutable.

As they approached Brandywine, Lynn eased off the gas and decelerated. A half mile out, the first signs of fire appeared, the ground and trees scorched black. A burned out car sat lengthwise across the road, and Lynn swerved around it, her eyes darting to the blackened skeleton slumped behind the wheel, its head back and its jaw slack in a frozen scream. She halfway expected it to turn its head and shriek in madness. _The afterlife is worse._ A bead of ice dropped down her spine and she shuddered.

In town, Route 33 curved north. Charred buildings, slanted telephone poles, and more husks of vehicles flanked the road. Lynn turned and followed the road for three miles before the devastation petered out. Flat pastureland fell away on either side, trees crowding along decaying wooden fences and overhanging rusted metal gates. A blue and white Ford sat on its hood in the middle of the road, and Lynn spun the wheel, swinging wide around it, then the other way to avoid a suitcase. Splintered power poles dotted the way, and beyond them the outbuildings of a farm appeared. Lynn was honestly surprised by the number of farms she'd seen across the state: She always assumed that West Virginia was all mountain hollers and moonshine stills, but it _teemed_ with cattle and poultry farms featuring big, narrow two story coops that housed hundreds.

Speaking of chickens, she spotted a flock making their way across a field, some of them running headlong and others jumping into the air, their wings flapping impotantly. They must have gotten out of their pen at some point right after things fell apart, or else someone released them. "Chickens," Lincoln said.

"That's crazy, right?" Lynn asked and turned back to the road. "Not something you see every day."

"I should try and peg one," he said and patted the M-16. "Or three."

Lynn snorted. "Wanna shoot something, huh?"

"Not really," he said, "but tell me chicken doesn't sound good."

Ummm, actually, yes, it did. Lynn couldn't remember the last time she had chicken...or beef...or any fresh meat, for that matter. By the time they left Royal Woods, the power had been out for close to a week and all the perishables at the grocery store were rotting; in the months since, they'd subsisted entirely on canned and dried foods.

Her mouth started to water.

"Pull over," Lincoln said.

Lynn glanced at him. "Are you serious?"

"As a heart attack."

In the back, Luan looked anxiously out the window, perhaps scanning the distance for ghouls, her hands twisting in her lap. "I don't know if that's such a good idea," she said. "We should just keep going."

Lynn was already pulling to the shoulder, gravel crunching under the tires. "Do you even know the first thing about cleaning an animal, Linc?" Lynn asked playfully.

"Not at all," Lincoln admitted. "But I'll try like hell." He opened the door and got out, Luan watching him go with a flicker of apprehension. Lynn threw her door open, stood, then leaned over the seat and grabbed her Springfield. Call her sadistic, but pegging a few chickens sounded kind of fun.

Gun in hand, she slammed the door, went around the front end, and stood next to her brother, who held the M-16 lengthwise, the barrel pointed at the ground. A warm breeze washed over them, bringing with it a dank, earthy smell that reminded Lynn of bogs she used to explore as a child, where the ground was spongy, the water stagnant, and the wildlife strange, hostile even. In a way, she thought now, the world had become a bog: A big, giant, monster haunted bog.

Roughly the distance of a football field separated them from the birds, who'd stopped to bicker. _You never ask for directions, Harold._ Lincoln lifted the gun, wedged the stock into the crook of his shoulder, and stared down the sight. "See that fat one on the end?" he asked.

Lynn scanned the crowd and spotted it. "Yeah," she said.

Lincoln nodded. "His ass is mine."

Behind them, Luan opened her door and turned to face them, knees pressed together, but didn't get out. She held a Glock in her hand and cast worried glances over her shoulder, watching for the living dead. She was passable with the gun - Lynn taught her how to shoot on the road - but that didn't matter since she had a way of freezing up.

Like Lynn did last night.

She forced that thought away and watched the flock, waiting for Lincoln to fire. "Go on, Annie Oakley," she teased. Lincoln was a decent shot too, at long range; up close, he was a _great_ shot. Even better than Lynn - she was surprised at how well he took to shooting. She expected him to treat guns like they were temperamental animals that bite if touched wrong, instead he treated them like a favorite pet. Funny how people adapt in times of crisis, isn't it?

 _I need you to step it up,_ she told him in Royal Woods. They were sitting side-by-side in the upstairs hall, backs against a closed door. Panic and pandemonium had set in and everyone was too scared to even move lest they attract the dead. _I...I can't do this alone. I need you to be strong. We_ all _need you to be strong._

He stepped it up, alright, and Lynn felt a sudden rush of pride in him - if he wasn't getting ready to fire a weapon, she'd snake her arm around his shoulder, drag his head to her chest, and give him a big, affectionate noogie.

Taking a deep breath, he lined up the shot and jerked the trigger: The report shattered the preternatural silence and rang through the hills like thunder. The chicken Lincoln pointed out fell, and his comrades scattered to the wind. Uh-oh. Better get while the getting's good: Lynn raised her gun, tracked a fleeing bird, and squeezed the trigger: The bullet struck the ground in front of it and kicked up dirt. The chicken jumped and ran faster. Shit. She cocked the bolt, expended the cartridge, and aimed again. Next to her, Lincoln fired, missing and striking a fence post. "You gotta do better than that, baby boy," she laughed.

Lincoln swung the gun around and fired again, knocking a chicken down in its tracks. "Hit one _then_ talk to me," he said.

Oh? That sounded like a challenge, and if there's one thing that Lynn Loud loved, it was a challenge. She aimed at a chicken streaking across the field, apart from the others, and lined up the shot. She pulled the trigger, and its head evaporated in a red mist. "Boom, headshot!" She arched her brow and pursed her lips in her best smug expression.

"You got lucky," he said, "watch _this_." He aimed and fired; the round kicked up dirt three feet in front of a fleeing bird.

Lynn snickered. "Impressive."

"I was going for its legs," he grumbled, embarrassed.

"Well, you missed." She aimed at the same chicken and squeezed off a shot that hit it dead center, driving it to the ground. "There," she chirped haughilty, "got it for you."

The remaining chickens, close to a dozen, were white blips in the distance, too far away to bother worrying about. Three bodies lay in the grass, two from her and one from him. She laid the rifle against the crook of her neck and smirked at him. "I win."

Lincoln drew a deep sigh. "Yeah, well, if…"

Luan screamed.

As one, Lincoln and Lynn whipped around, instincts kicking in and overriding everything else. Three ghouls shambled across the black top, their arms outstretched and their eyes glowing with malignant yellow light. The closest was at the front end of the Bronco, its body bumping into the driver side corner. Lincoln lifted the gun and fired - the bullet tore through its head in a shower of rotted flesh and jagged bone fragments. It dropped to one side and the one immediately behind it tripped, its head striking the pavement so hard it died.

Lynn started to lift her gun to take care of the third, but Lincoln cut her off, the round hitting it below the right eye and blowing out the back of its head. It went stiff and fell back, hitting the blacktop with a sickly crack. Lincoln looked at her and flashed a tight, wan smile that didn't touch his eyes. "I win," he said.

The grim, serious expression on his face struck her as funny, and she laughed. "Alright, big boy, you win," she said, then twisted her head around to look over her shoulder. "Your prize is to go get those chickens we shot."

He stared at her, then slowly shrugged. "Alright." He propped the M-16 against the front end and started down the embankment. "Cover me," he said.

"No shit," Lynn said. Of course she was going to cover him - he was almost the only thing she had in the world. Hell, she wouldn't have sent him out there if it wasn't so flat and open that nothing in the world could possibly sneak up on him. She glanced over her shoulder at Luan; the older girl's face was ashen and she trembled slightly. "We're leaving in a minute," Lynn assured her, then turned back to Lincoln just as he stooped and snatched up on of the chickens. "Just as soon as Linc gets our dinner."

Luan nodded jerkily.

Birds in hand, Lincoln came back and held them up for Lynn's inspection - one was downright scrawny, one was alright, and the one Lincoln shot was plump, its bones supporting enough meat to feed all three of them twice over. She whistled her appreciation. "Good job. Now how are we going to keep them? Stores are all outta ice."

Lincoln looked at the chickens and took a deep breath. "There's a town up the road...about ten miles. We can maybe stop there and cook them. Or on the road somewhere. Depending."

On the dead, he meant.

"Good," Lynn said of the town, "we need fuel anyway."

While Lincoln stowed the carcasses in the back, Lynn climbed behind the wheel and slammed the door. Luan came to life like a statue, slow and ponderous, and sat the gun on the seat next to her. Lynn frowned at her in the rearview mirror - they _needed_ Washington for Luan alone. She'd never make it out here. How she came this far was beyond Lynn. Luck, she figured. Or the grace of God.

Lincoln slid into the passenger seat and pulled the door closed behind him. "We got company," he said. Lynn glanced in the mirror, and saw two ghouls staggering toward them, about a quarter mile back.

"We made too much noise," Lynn said and threw the gear shift into drive, "oops."

From there, the 33 wound through low, tree crowded foothills boasting white frame houses with green roofs and the occasional church or community hall. The sky stretched into forever, and giant white clouds sailed across like galleons at sea. The only sound was the hum of tires on pavement and the sporadic rustle of fabric as Luan shifted positions uncomfortably. Lynn hated silence, because in the quiet, her mind always began to work, the memories and doubts to come. "What's up with this town?" she asked to fill the void. 33 bent upwards and to the right as it crossed a low, time worn mountain.

"It's called Franklin," Lincoln said, "it's bordered to the southwest by...the south branch of the Potomac." There was a hesitation as he tried to remember the name of the river. "33 meets N. Main Street in a Y shape. That's pretty much all I know."

Hm. Too bad Google Maps wasn't still up and running. That'd be a lifesaver.

Literally.

"How big?"

A UPS truck lie on its side like a wounded animal. Perfect visual metaphor for the collapse of civilization, isn't it? The mail runs rain, sleet, or shine, but not through zombies. She eased up on the gas and pulled wide around; packages littered the road, and the tires crushed a few underfoot.

Lincoln considered his response for a moment. "Not big. And turn right onto Main. Outside town it turns into Route 220 and we follow that for…" he scrunched his brows in thought. "Ninety miles before we hit Capon Bridge."

"That in Virginia, right?"

"West Virginia," Lincoln corrected. "220 turns into Route 50 and crosses into Virginia a couple miles later."

Lynn called up a vision of the map she and Lincoln studied the night before. "There's a big town close by, right? In Virginia?"

"Winchester," Lincoln said. "It's fairly big. We can swing around north or south. If we go north we can cross back into West Virginia then into Maryland. From there we just follow the Potomac in." They were at the summit now: In the west, mountains rolled like frozen waves, and directly ahead, a small town huddled on the banks of a wide river: Lynn spotted a white church steeple, a blue water tower, and a red brick schoolhouse on a hill, its narrow front windows glinting in the sun like knowing eyes. Tree lined streets flanked by quaint brick-and-glass storefronts and comfortable old houses formed a rough, sloppy grid. "We're gonna have to go through some urban sprawl either way, but north is less dense."

Lynn nodded. "North it is," she said.

After descending from the hills, 33 crossed into Franklin over a green truss bridge; the paint was beginning to fleck in places, and the steel to rust. Seen from a distance, the village looked so wholesome, so _normal,_ that for a moment it was hard to believe that anything was wrong there - the shops would all be open and the sidewalks busy with people enjoying the late summer weather. On closer inspection, however, you could see telltale warning signs: Overturned trash cans; broken glass littering the pavement like twinkling stars; a power line hanging slack across Main; two crashed cars in a T; a dead cat in the gutter, its bones picked clean. A ghoul shambled into the street, and Lynn instinctively hit the gas. The Bronco rocketed forward with a low _vroom_ and the thing turned just as the front end hit: It doubled over the hood then disappeared under the tires, the Bronco rocking. Lincoln snorted laughter, and Lynn flashed a devious grin. "Ten points" she said. In the back, Luan hugged herself.

Ahead, the highway forked, the left hand route going up a hill and turning out of sight, and the right going _down_ a hill. A Shell station sat in the middle, a fuel tanker sitting in the parking lot and facing out, the driver side door standing open. Lynn guided the Branco in and pulled to one of the pumps. _Fill 'er up, pleeze._ She cut the engine and jumped out, grabbing the Springfield and slinging it over her shoulder. Lincoln got out and went around back. Luan stayed where she was, which was just as well.

Lincoln pulled the hatch open while Lynn looked around for undead; crows cawed alone in the sky, and a warm wind blew forlornly through the streets, rustling leaves and pushing bits of litter across the asphalt with an eerie _scritch._ No matter how long she spent out here, she would never get used to the unnatural silence holding sway. The world is supposed to be noisy, even if only a little: Car engines, people talking, phones ringing, planes flying overhead. Two months after the end, however, all the cars were stalled, the people were dead, phone service out, and the planes grounded. Sometimes, standing among the cemetery quiet, she wanted to scream just so there was _something_.

"Here," Lincoln said and handed her a red gas can. He took a coil of rubber hose and a thin metal rod and slammed the hatch, his eyes going to the truck. "You think it'd be easier to get some outta there?" he asked.

Hours after the final techs abandoned their posts at the power plants, the grid crashed and rolling blackouts spread across the country like ink. No electric meant that the pumps no longer worked - they'd been getting gas by tapping directly into the underground storage tanks, a process that they'd repeated so many times since Royal Woods that they had it down to a science; Lynn timed them once, and they were always done in just over five minutes. They'd never taken any from a tanker before, and Lynn really didn't want to try now. "Probably not. Just stick to what we know."

Lincoln shrugged. "Whatever."

With another glance over her shoulder, Lynn followed Lincoln over to a metal manhole cover flush with the ground. He knelt and she remained standing, covering him. He found purchase, and dragged it off with a strained grunt; it made a spine tingling scraping sound that seemed much, much louder in the total silence than it really was. She imagined every ghoul within a ten mile radius hearing and turning toward the noise, beginning a slow but inevitable march forward...like death itself.

Lincoln unscrewed the cap of the tank, tossed it aside, and jammed the hose in. He brought it to his lips, sucked, then turned and spat a mouthful of gasoline onto the ground. "Can," he said and held out his hand. Lynn gave it to him and glanced back toward the street.

Still empty.

"You think this is the best place to cook chicken?" she asked uncertainly.

Lincoln looked over his shoulder and swept the town with his gaze, then ticked his head from side to side. "Probably not. We can stop later somewhere, just...I don't wanna wait too long. I don't know how long they'll keep." The gas can was full now; he yanked the hose out and got to his feet. In the street, three ghouls slouched toward them in an ambling gant, their arms out in front of them and their shoulders squared. Lynn unshoulder the Springfield, aimed at one, and fired, hitting it in the face and spinning it around. She didn't destroy the brain, though - it pushed itself back to its feet.

Setting aside the gas can, Lincoln got up and came over, slinging the M-16 off his shoulder and lifting it. Oh no. Lynn hip checked him and he stumbled. "Get outta here, Linc-O," she said airily. "I saw 'em first."

Lincoln blew a raspberry. "You took a shot and missed. It's _my_ turn." He lifted the gun and stepped forward, his eye peering down the sight.

Lynn watched, then as he pulled the trigger: "Miss!"

He jerked ever so slightly, and the shot went wild, striking a stop sign with a metallic _ping_. She grinned proudly, and he turned to her, his expression dour. "Now, _that_ was cheating."

"No it wasn't," she said chiruped and brought the Springfield up. She glanced at him and rolled her eyes at his tight-lipped smile. _Sure,_ it said, _okay._ "You were gonna miss anyway." She aimed, but whipped her head around when Lincoln bumped his elbow into her side, her ponytail lashing like a whip. "Cut it out, Linc," she said, "you're gonna make me miss."

Lincoln snorted. "That's the point."

The ghouls were closer now, a hundred feet and closing in...albeit at a snail's pace. If they kept going back and forth like this, they'd be kibble by Christmas. Lynn aimed the gun and shot a warning look at her brother: Brows raised, head tilted forward. "No spoiling me this time."

Lincoln held his hands up, left palm flat, right gripping the M-16's stock. "Go ahead." He glanced at the Bronco: Luan sat with her legs perched on the running board, dividing her attention between them and everything else, her eyes darting left, right, front, and back for signs of approaching danger. She clutched the Glock in one hand, so tight her knuckles were white. Lynn turned slowly away from Lincoln, but watched him from the corner of her eye, the corners of her mouth turned up. She'd always loved messing with her little brother; over the past two months, she hadn't had the chance (too busy staying alive), and she'd forgotten how much she enjoyed their banter.

She returned her focus to the advancing ghouls, lined up with one's head, and pulled the trigger. The shot took it in the forehead, and it fell over, dead. "Boom," she said, pronouncing the word slowly, teasingly, "head shot." Lincoln shook his head longsufferingly, and she grinned. Dork.

Bringing the rifle around, she aimed at the second and fired - it, too, fell dead. "You can have the last one," she said. Might as well let him bag one so he didn't start crying like a baby.

"Thanks," he said sarcastically. He slung the rifle over his shoulder, and Lynn lifted a quizzical brow.

"You gonna shoot it with your finger?" she asked.

"Nope," Lincoln said. He reached into the holster on his hip and pulled out his Beretta.

Lynn blew a raspberry. "Big man going for the handgun."

"That's right," Lincoln said. He cupped his right hand in his left palm and extended his arms, his feet planting apart. "Takes more skill than that bitch gun you got there."

Lynn laughed. "Bitch gun?"

"Umhm," Lincoln said. He aimed, and Lynn considered kneeing him in the crotch or stomach, but figured that that might be going a little too far, so she turned to the ghoul and watched as Lincoln's round struck it in the head, knocking it to one side. He shot it again. "Just because," he said.

Lynn turned toward the Bronco and patted his shoulder. "Good job, killer, now let's go. I want some of that chicken." She bent down, grabbed the gas can and hose, and carried them over. She opened the tank, unscrewed the cap, and inserted the nozzle, holding the can at an angle. Luan watched her, anxious eyes flicking up and down. Lynn felt a sudden rush of irritation with her sister. Lincoln adapted, she adapted, but Luan hadn't, and that put her at risk of dying. Lynn had already lost too many people she loved, and the thought of Luan letting herself stay a nervous wreck until it killed her scared and pissed her off. She drew a deep breath and looked away from her sister, perhaps in shame at what she was about to say. "You really need to suck it up," she said. "You're going to get yourself killed."

Luan didn't reply, and from the corner of her eye, Lynn saw her bow her head. Softening her tone, she continued. "I know it's scary. I'm scared too. That's why I _need_ you to be strong." A lump of emotion formed in her throat. "I worry about you and Linc every second of every day. I can trust Linc to at least handle himself. I can't with you."

Across the parking lot, Lincoln stooped down and snatched something off the ground. Lynn focused on him and did her best not to look at Luan. It was true, she did worry about both of them. Lincoln was better equipped to take care of himself, more so than any of the others had been. That didn't put him out of harm's way, but it did lessen the burden on her, even if just a little. Luan leaned on her almost entirely - she could cook, she knew a little first aid from Lisa, and she could lift, push, and pull as well as her scrawny frame would allow, but she couldn't protect herself. She froze the way Lynn did yesterday, only she did it _every single time._ She carried that gun around like a girl with a magic talisman, but when the time came to actually _use_ it, she seized. Little good it did _her_. It might as well be a freaking potato.

Lincoln turned and started walking over, his stride easy and sure. Lynn couldn't help looking him up and down and marvelling at how much he had changed. He seemed taller, fuller. Some of that was puberty, she imagined, but most of it was simply a projection of his inner strength. Or something. She wasn't the best with analogies and stuff, but when she looked at him, she felt that she saw not only what was on the outside but what was on the inside as well. When she looked at Luan, she saw what was inside too - the girl, taller than Lincoln and broader in the shoulders, was smaller than him. Weak. Shriveled. Like a child. A child that needed a level of protection and reassurance that Lynn couldn't spare...not here, not now. In Washington, where things were certainly normal and safe, she would - she'd hold Luan in her lap like a mother and hug her close, but here, in the wild, she couldn't, She needed her to be self-sufficient, at least to an extent. She could only protect her siblings so much, hold their hand so far.

"I'm sorry," Luan said, her voice barely above a whisper.

Lynn took the nozzle out and screwed the cap back on. "I just don't wanna lose you." She carried the empty can around to the hatch without looking at her sister and stuck it in back, then slammed the door. Lincoln stood on the other side staring down at something in his hand. An inexplicable smile touched her lips and she went over to stand next to him. "What'cha got, Linc-O?" she asked, her hand going to his shoulder. It was toned and warm under her palm; she squeezed and affectionately stroked the side of his neck with her thumb.

He held up a green piece of paper. "A picture of some dead guy."

Squinting, Lynn studied it. A hundred dollar bill, Ben Franklin staring back and looking constipated. She plucked it out of his hand and held it up to the sun. "I don't think I've ever held a hundred dollar bill," she mused. Growing up, money was tight and hard to come by. She made a little shoveling neighbors' driveways and stuff, but never much. She didn't think she'd ever had more than fifty dollars at any given time.

"No?" Lincoln asked and leaned into her, their shoulders touching. He stared up at the money and scrunched his lips.

"Nope," Lynn said and shoved it into her pocket with a challenging grin. "I've never owned one either. Until now."

Lincoln chuckled. "Have fun spending it."

She shrugged one shoulder. "When we get to Washington." With that, she turned and started around the Bronco, casting a glance at Lincoln over her shoulder; a breeze stirred his snowy hair and the rays of the morning sun fell over him like shafts of gold. "Maybe I'll split it with you."

"Gee, I sure hope so."

The sarcasm in his voice made her giggle. He was strong, fast, handsome, a good shot, _and_ witty. She was _very_ proud of him.

Mom and Dad would be too.

That thought stuck in her heart like a knife, and her warm smile turned cold.

In the Bronco, she slammed the door and turned the key in the ignition, then pulled a U-turn and braked at the street. "Which way do I take at the fork?" she asked.

"Right," Lincoln said instantly.

She turned right, and soon, the houses dotting the street fell away and were replaced by thick forest. For the first ten miles, the South Branch of the Potomac matched the highway bend for bend before twisting away like a slithering snake. On the left, a rundown trailer park appeared, the sign flanking the main entrance blaring HAPPY HILLS MOBILE HOME COURT. It didn't look too happy: Rusted, tumbledown single wides, dirt lot, canned porches, dead bodies. The end of one trailer faced the road - a big Confederate flag hung in the window. Hm. Was this part of the south during the war? She wasn't sure, but she kind of thought it was a border state.

Not that it mattered. Not that _anything_ like that mattered anymore. Oh, at one point it did, but when something happens, when civilizations fall, you learn real quick what matters and what doesn't, what's _real_ and what isn't. See, a lot of things that are so vital to us, so ingrained, are man made constructs that don't mean squat when you leave the village and walk into the jungle. Like democracy. And fairness. Do you think the wild is _fair?_ Is there equality? Nope, sorry. The lion is faster and stronger than the gazelle, and that's all there is it to it. Things happen and they might be what we call unfair, but do you know what the law of nature calls it? Tough shit. What we call society is but a thin veneer covering a seething mass of wilderness. It took hours for the electrical grid to crash, weeks, a month maybe, for everything we spent thousands of years building to fall. The means of that destruction are irrelevant - zombies, bubonic plague, nuclear war - the point is that human beings clawed their way to the top, we mastered the earth and the elements...but it was all an illusion. Oh, we had a grip...the same way a man dangling from a high place has a grip. One wrong move and _bam,_ it's all over.

Lynn sighed and glanced at Lincoln, her eyes tracing the strong curve of his jaw and his deep-set eyes. So different from the boy she left Royal Woods with at the end of June, a reminder that people are not static, they grow and change. She'd changed...in fact, she and Lincoln passed each other in opposite directions - he became much stronger, and she became weaker. She never worried herself sick before, never cried, never woke up from nightmares with a scream bursting against the inside of her lips. Now she did.

In a way, though, isn't worrying a strength in of itself? Worry breeds caution, and in moderation, caution is one of the handiest survival tools you can ever have. Recklessness gets you killed, and since it fell to her to protect her siblings, the springboard bravado she cultured back in Royal Woods went out the window _real_ quick. Maybe if it was just her, she'd risk it, but it wasn't. She had Luan to worry about, and Lincoln too. Her precious Lincoln.

She didn't want to lose him. Or Luan.

They meant everything to her.

Especially Lincoln.


	5. Chicken

They stopped just north of a town called Moorefield: Thick vegetation pressed against either shoulder of the highway and low, green hills rose in the distance, backlit against the dusty blue sky. Lynn spotted a clearing to the right wedged between the embankment sloping down from the road and a slow moving river with rocky banks. A tree sat in the middle of the clearing, its wide-spreading branches providing deep and ample shade. On the opposite side of the river, a crumbling barn sat tangled in undergrowth, its decomposing facade peeking out through vines and brambles like a ghoul watching...waiting patient as a spider in web. A shiver went down Lynn's spine and she almost kept going, but pulled to the guardrail and killed the engine anyway. She was being stupid - it was a building and nothing more.

By that point it was well past noon and the sun was high in the heavens, the day going from warm to unbearably hot. They encountered a smash-up on Route 7 - a twisted pile of metal blocking the road like a fortress wall. Either side of the road was flanked with steep hills, and Lynn briefly considered trying to pass, but worried that the Bronco would flip, so they backtracked nearly ten miles and took an alternate route. In Moorefield, a tractor trailer jackknifed across Main Street and spilled its contents - cans and cases of Coca-Cola products. Lynn detoured and drove across the high school athletic field, the Bronco's tires tearing up the turf and flinging clumps of dirt at the empty stands. The next pitfall came a mile later: The bridge leading out of town had been washed away in an apparent flash flood (if the junk and debris littering the riverbed and the banks were any indication) which meant _another_ detour. By the time they crossed seven miles later, Lynn was frustrated and beginning to wonder if the universe wasn't trying to stop them. _Go back...death lies this way_. Stupid, but that thought filled her with cold dread, and she thought back to the house on the mountain - isolated, remote, safe. Maybe she was wrong, maybe they _should_ have stayed.

"How much farther?" she asked Lincoln as she killed the engine. He stared out the window at the clearing, scanning it for signs of danger.

"About forty-five miles to Capon Bridge," he said and turned.

It was about two o'clock. "Do you think we can get there before nightfall?"

Lincoln thought for a moment. "I don't know," he said at length, "at the rate things are going now, probably not."

Damn. She was hoping to stay the night there and then start the final approach to Washington in the morning. She was allowing several days from Capon Bridge to D.C. In the old days, before the plague, it would take only a matter of hours, but now the way was more dangerous and littered with obstacles. Taking the conditions of the roads around Washington into consideration, it might take closer to a week, especially if they were forced to ditch the Bronco and go in on foot. She hoped to God they didn't have to do that, but the more she thought, the more certain she became that they would.

And if they got into the beating heart of the nation's capital only to find that it, too, was dead, they'd be stranded...and have to make their way out.

Sigh.

Lincoln opened the door and jumped out, grabbing the M-16 and slinging it over his shoulder. Lynn followed, taking the Springfield and looking at Luan, whose face was gray and her eyes wide with worry. "You coming?" Lynn asked.

The older girl hesitated, then nodded. "Y-Yeah." She grabbed her Glock and climbed out, dust kicking up when her sneakered feet hit the ground. A furnace blast breeze ruffled the fabric of her blouse, and she nervously smoothed out her jeans. Lynn put a comforting hand on her shoulder and leaned in until their foreheads were touching. "I won't let anything bad happen to you," she said. "I promise."

Luan swallowed thickly and nodded. "Okay." She flashed a tight smile, then followed Lynn to the rear, where Lincoln rummaged through the cargo compartment for the chickens. He grabbed them, his fingers wrapping around their necks, and pulled them out. Luan paled a little at their dead faces and looked away.

"Let's see how I well I do," Lincoln said.

Ten minutes later, Luan watched from the shade of the tree as Lynn dropped an armful of sticks next to Lincoln, who knelt over one of the bodies, a knife in his hand and his bare chest glinting with sweat. Lynn's eyes darted to him, tracing the outline of his flexing muscles as he worked, and felt a twinge in the pit of her stomach. "Here ya go, Linc-O," she said and glanced at the river; water splashed over rocks with a low hiss and a hot wind rustled the tops of the trees. Lincoln filled her phirpiery, his warm skin, rugged features, and her throat went dry. She glanced away and looked over at the road: The Bronco stood against the guardrail, silent and waiting. She made sure to leave the keys in the ignition as she always did, just in case something happened to her and Lincoln and Luan needed to get away. Her eyes started to drift back to Lincoln, but she forced them to the headless chicken lying before him instead. Lincoln jammed the tip of the blade into its pink, plucked body and jerked to one side; its entrails spilled out and plopped onto the grass with a wet sound, the rank smell of its stomach cavity wafting into Lynn's nose and making it crinkle. Lincoln's hands were red with blood and moved in quick, surgeon like motions. So steady, so strong, so sure.

"Now comes the fun part," he said and plunged his hand deep into the bird's stomach cavity. He didn't wince, didn't recoil; he would have two months ago, but he'd seen, and done, a lot on the road.

She glanced over as Luan walked up, her eyes pointed away from what her brother was doing. "Is there anything you need me to do?" she asked tentatively. Her face was wan, but Lynn saw clear, though faint, determination in her eyes, and that made her grin. She was taking what Lynn said to heart and bucking up, finally.

Lynn twisted around and looked at the pile of sticks. "You can set those up," she offered, "you know how, right?"

The older girl nodded, her ponytail bobbing. Lynn knew that she did, or _should_ : She'd done it before. She'd also washed clothes by hand along with Leni and Luna. "Alright," Lynn said, "do that. I have to pee."

Slinging the Springfield over her shoulder, she started toward the river bank - there was a stand of brush off to the left, and she figured she could get behind it to screen herself. Normally, she didn't care if one of her siblings caught sight of her going, no one did (privacy was a luxury they'd long debased themselves of), but suddenly the idea of Lincoln seeing her squat, exposed, naked, and like an animal, twisted her stomach. She stole a furtive glance back: Luan stood over Lincoln, and he stared up at her, squinting against the glare of the sun. He said something, and Luan snickered.

At the bank, she ducked behind a bush and looked around to make sure that no ghouls were going to sneak up on her. Satisfied, she took out the Desert Eagle, pulled down her pants and underwear, and bent facing the river, flashes of blue through entwined green. When she was done, she wanted to bring out the roadmaps and go over them with Lincoln - Luan could handle the cooking. She wanted to know exactly where they should stop for the night and get there with enough daylight left that they could set up before nightfall: Sunset wouldn't be for another three or four hours, but as the motto of the cautious goes, it's better to be safe than sorry. Being caught on the road at dark was _not_ something she wanted to do.

Finished, she stood and pulled her pants up, wincing at the feeling of pee drops dribbling into the fabric of her underwear. Cleanliness, like privacy, was something she and her siblings had to forsake over the past two months. Speaking of which, they should probably bathe while they were here - that river was just _begging_ for it.

Slipping the Desert Eagle back into its holster, she crossed over to the campsite, if campsite it can be called. Lincoln was gutting the third chicken and Luan was on her knees arranging the sticks in a tight teepee shape. Sweat coursed down Lynn's forehead and stung her eyes; she wiped it away with the back of her hand and drew a dry breath. Did it always get this hot in the south? It never did in Michigan. If so, you'd _never_ see her outside. Baseball? Football? Ha. Nope. Sorry.

As she passed, her eyes fell on Lincoln, then on the chicken. His arms were slimey with guts up to the elbow, and a pile of internal organs sat next to him. She couldn't resist a playful jab. "Saving that stuff for yourself, Linc?"

Lincoln glanced up at her, his cheeks flush and his sweaty bangs plastered to his forehead, then down at the guts. "Best part," he said. "Loaded with iron."

Lynn snickered. "You're loaded with something, alright. Shit."

Before he could fire back, she hurried up the embankment and climbed over the guardrail, her hands touching then yanking back when the heated metal stung. Ow, damn. She opened the passenger side door, leaned into the glovebox, and grabbed the map. Before going back, she looked up and down the highway to make sure it was free of the dead.

It was.

Back at camp, she dropped into the dry grass next to Lincoln and crossed her legs. Luan came over, knelt, and shoved a handful of dry grass into the teepee, then produced a lighter from her pocket and lit it; thick white smoke drifted forth, pinching Lynn's nose and stinging her eyes. Coughing, she waved her hand in front of her face. "Sorry," Luan said sheepishly.

"You're killing me, Smalls," Lynn said, and glanced at Lincoln to see his reaction. It was from _The Sandlot,_ one of her favorite movies. She used to say that to him when they were playing baseball in the backyard and he'd miss a perfect toss. He lifted his brows, flipped the chicken over, and carved out its heart.

Lynn chuckled. "You heard that a lot, huh?"

"I still hear it in my sleep sometimes," he said and smirked at her. "In that annoying Lynn voice."

Luan smiled wanly and Lynn gaped. "Annoying Lynn voice?" she asked, the corners of her lips creeping up in a smile.

He nodded and started to carve the chicken into pieces. "Yep. The one that makes my ears bleed." He looked at her with a smug little grin that dared her to wipe it off, so she did by punching him hard in the arm.

"Real smart," he said, "punch the guy holding a knife." He held it up, blade pointing into the heavens.

Blowing a raspberry, Lynn waved him off. "I could take that thing away from you easy." She couldn't - probably - but admitting defeat or weakness was not the done thing when you're Lynn Loud. Well...it didn't _used_ to be. Actually, she'd admitted both more times over the past two months than she cared to remember. It never got easier, but it was better to admit your shortcomings than to hide them, right?

 _Like you just did?_

Well...this is different. She was just kidding around with her brother.

Presently, Lincoln snorted and sawed through a tough piece of cartilage, separating two pieces of meat. "You think so."

"I know so," she said.

When all three birds were in manageable chunks, Lincoln skewered them on five different sticks and looked at the fire; it was low, smoky, and crackling. "Uhhh...I guess just like roasting marshmallows." He handed one to Luan, another to Lynn, then took one for himself; they held them over the flames, and the meat began to sizzle.

Lynn glanced over her shoulder at the sun dappled river, scanning the brush for danger but seeing none. "We should probably all bathe while we're here," she said, turning back to the task at hand.

"You guys can go first," Lincoln said.

No power meant no running water, and the only way they'd taken baths since leaving home was in rivers, streams, and once in a lake near Parkersburg. In Ohio, they camped in a farmhouse that had an old stone well in the backyard, so they filled buckets and washed themselves with rags. Method notwithstanding, when they bathed, at least one person always stood guard, only a couple feet away with a rifle and eyes peeled for trouble. Lynn was never ecstatic about her brother watching over her as she did that, but today, for some reason, the thought made her blush deeply. Not that he was gonna be a perv and look at her or anything, still…

Then, when it was his turn, she'd have to watch over _him_ , and that made her blush deeper still.

Lincoln turned his chicken over the fire - it was starting to turn white, and the smell of it cooking found Lynn's nostrils; her stomach growled and she began to salivate. "Do you want me to go to the car?" Luan asked haltingly. "T-To get soap?"

Lynn blinked. Luan volunteering to go off on her own? Yeah, she didn't exactly sound excited about it, but the fact that she offered...jeez, what Lynn said earlier must have _really_ snapped her out of it.

That made her feel kind of bad. She didn't want Luan to push herself too hard...she just wanted her to take care of herself a little. "Nah, I'll grab it," she said, "I need to get something anyway." That was a lie, she didn't need anything from the car other than bath stuff. Soap. Towel. And that was it.

When the chicken was finally done, brown and crisp and smelling so good Lynn's eyes rolled back into her head, they dug in, the flavor of hot, fresh meat like ambrosia after sixty days of canned slop. "This is really good," Luan said around a mouthful.

"Best chicken ever," Lynn agreed, spraying bits onto her lap, and it was - dry and bland as it may have been.

Lincoln tore a piece off with his teeth, chewed, and swallowed. "Colonel Sanders ain't got shit on me."

Lynn laughed so hard she inhaled a piece of meat and started to choke. Lincoln slapped her hard on the back, and it flew out of her mouth into the fire. "Thanks," she said, blushing with embarrassment.

"Don't mention it," Lincoln said, "I…"

He trailed off when a ghoul appeared at the guard rail, a tattered suit hanging from its emaciated frame. From here, Lynn couldn't tell if it was a man or woman; sparse tufts of hair clung to its rotting scalp and blood crusted the lower half of its face - mess from a meal past, she thought with a shiver. Luan turned, saw it, and tensed. For a second, it stood where it was, then came dumbly forward, bumping off the guardrail and stumbling back. It tried again, this time doubling over the metal and landing hard before rolling down the hill. Lynn couldn't stop a morbid laugh from bubbling up in her throat.

For a moment, Lincoln stared at it, then pulled out his Bowie knife, grabbed the stick he'd roasted his chicken on, and started to sharpen it. Lynn turned her head and furrowed her brows. "What are you doing?" she asked incredulously. Luan watched the ghoul warily as it struggled to its feet, her hand creeping shakily to the Glock on the ground next to her.

"I'm gonna spear his ass," Lincoln said, shaving off long strips of bark with the blade.

"Really?"

"Yeah."

The ghoul stood, swayed like a drunk on his way home from drinking up his paycheck, and started forward. Lincoln got to his feet and Lynn followed: She _had_ to see this shit. "You think you can do it?" she asked.

Lincoln looked down at the spear and ticked his head from side to side. "I think so," he said and looked at her.

"G-Guys…" Luan said.

Lynn glanced at her sister, then followed her gaze: Another ghoul was wading through the river, the water up to its waist. This one was a woman, clad in a pink dress, her bushy hair faded red and her face white. Lynn spotted a third picking its way through the brush on the other side of the river, and her heart started to race. Okay, maybe this wasn't good.

Never taking her eyes off the advancing creatures, Lynn stooped down and picked up the Springfield. The woman reached the bank and slipped on the rocks, falling to the ground in a heap. She aimed at the third, still tangled in the brush, and that's when she noticed a fourth and a fifth; her stomach clutched. Yeah, this was not good. "Linc?"

Gripping the spear, Lincoln wound up, one foot leaving the ground, then drove it forward - it sailed through the air and sank into the ghoul's chest, knocking it back but not over.

Six, seven, eight, nine zombies moving along the treeline. On the ground, Luan started to hyperventilate, and Lynn couldn't blame her...she was starting to panic too. Lowering the gun, she turned to Lincoln, who watched the ghoul with a frown. "I missed," he said simply.

"We have to go," Lynn said, "now."

Lincoln's brow furrowed. "Why?" He twisted around, saw the army of the living dead amassing on the other bank, and paled. "Oh, shit. Yeah, let's go." He hurried over to the M-16, snatched it up, and aimed at the monster in the dress.

 _BLAM!_

She jerked back and sprawled on the ground, her legs spread out in a wide V. Lynn slung the rifle over her shoulder and went to Luan, who was frozen on the ground. "Come on," Lynn said and helped her to her feet, casting a fearful glance over her shoulder. Lincoln turned, shot the zombie with the spear in its chest, then stopped to grab a piece of chicken.

"C'mon, Linc!" Lynn said sharply and slipped her arm around Luan's shoulder. "Forget the damn chicken."

Lincoln shoved it into his mouth, grabbed another, then hurried over. By the time they climbed over the guardrail, the ghouls were crossing the field. Lynn stopped, looked back, and saw even more pouring out of the woods. "Oh, that's nice," Lincoln said. She turned in his direction, and saw six stumbling up the highway.

Okay, that's it, we're out.

Luan trembled and panted for air. "It's gonna be fine," Lynn said and hustled her around the back of the Bronco. She ripped the back door open, shoved her in, and slammed it. Behind the wheel, she turned the key in the ignition. She counted eleven now, all spread out and staggering toward them. Lincoln climbed in and pulled the door closed behind him.

"I hate these fucking things," Lynn said earnestly and threw the Bronco into drive. She hit the gas and angled across the road, pressing down on the pedal and gathering speed. There was no passing them, she'd have to plow through.

The front end slammed into one and it fell, the tires crushing it; the passenger corner clipped another and flung it aside.

"Tell me about it," Lincoln said, "I didn't get to finish my chicken."

Lynn bowed her head and snorted. "You're a real lame-o, you know that?"

Lincoln shrugged. "I've heard that once or twice."

"Well it's true. And a dork." She reached over and squeezed his leg.

 _And a good brother,_ she thought.


	6. Night of the Living Dead

Late afternoon: Shadows grew long across the land and the sun melted in the west, its light smearing the sky like liquid fire. Lynn backed the Bronco off the dirt road and through the open doors of a decrepit barn surrounded by rolling, grassy hills. Lincoln stood inside, waving her back, back, back, then holding up his hand. She cut the engine and jumped out. Hay covered the floor and empty stalls lined one wall; a loft accessed by a rough wooden ladder was cast in deep shadows. The only windows were on the opposite side, letting in shafts of feeble sunlight in which motes danced like pagan revelers. She crossed to the doors, pulled one closed, then the other, setting a long piece of wood in slats braced on either side.

It was just past six and they'd been driving ever since leaving the campsite, Lynn too nervous to stop - encountering a pack of the living dead will do that to you. They did have to take a few breaks to move stalled vehicles out of the road, but she didn't count those as actual stops: She and Lincoln worked quickly, both of them on high alert, looking at their surroundings more than at what their hands were doing. Using the wench was second nature by now, anyway.

By the time Lynn decided to stop for the night, they were three miles south of Hanging Rock, which straddles a river that the map neglected to name. The land surrounding it was hilly and dotted with farms and groves of trees flanking creeks, ponds, and winding dirt roads lined by wire fences. Capon Bridge was only ten miles farther on, but the chances of encountering another smash-up and being caught on the road after dark were too high for her liking, so she had Lincoln look for somewhere to shelter. The barn sat on the edge of a wide field, nestled in a stand of wavering trees and putting Lynn in mind of a Hobbit hole or something from on of those dumb movies she used to watch with Lincoln: Home to an enchanted little woodland elf who smoked a pipe and lived for tending his garden. She couldn't find an access point to the dirt road that serviced it, so she hazard driving down the embankment and across a lumpy meadow.

Presently, she turned and went over to the Bronco just as Luan slipped out, the Glock held tightly in her hand as it had been since that afternoon. For the first hour after leaving the campsite, she trembled slightly, and Lynn threatened to take the gun away lest she shoot someone; she got hold of herself _real_ quick after that.

"Help Lincoln carry the sleeping bags and stuff up to the loft," she said, glancing from her sister to the line of windows along the back wall.

Luan nodded.

Taking out the Desert Eagle, Lynn went to them and peered out, standing on her tippy toes and wiping a circle in the grimy pane with her hand. A field headed by low mountains stretched into the distance, pooling now with soft purple twilight. She looked around, but didn't see anything. Good. Back at the Bronco, Luan unloaded the sleeping bags and handed them to Lincoln, who carried them up the ladder. The movement stirred choking dust, and underneath its earthy scent Lynn could smell the dung of horses past. She wondered briefly if someone let them out in the end of it it was abandoned before. The chickens from earlier weren't the only domesticated animals she'd seen in the wild: Huge herds of horses galloping across the Ohio countryside, packs of cows crossing Main Street in a little town just across the West Virginia border, and feral dogs with collars and sometimes even leashes attached to their necks, a reminder that once upon a time they were someone else.

Pretty soon, she thought, we might go back to having buffalo roaming the plains and Colts running free in the Southwest.

At the hatch, she reached in and grabbed a couple lanterns then took them up to the loft, a wide, shadowy space with hay heaped floors. Lincoln knelt over a bare patch and brushed straw, and dust, away, making a place for them. Lynn's eyes went to his strong, muscular arms, watched them flex with a catch of breath. He sensed her and turned his head; she smiled. "Got some light," she said and held the lanterns up. She went over, dropped to her knees next to him, and lit one, soft, flickering illumination caressed the walls and scattered shadows into cobwebbed corners.

"Be careful with that thing," Lincoln said, "this crap's so dry it'll go up in a second." He nodded at the drifts of hay.

"I'll be careful," Lynn scoffed, then sat the lantern down hard. "Whoops."

He lifted his brow, thoroughly unamused. "Keep playing and the dead will be the least of our problems." He looked her up and down, and her heart inexplicably skipped a beat. "Actually, they already are."

Lynn grimaced and punched him in the arm. "Ouch," he said and grinned. "You're gonna keep it up and I'm going to bodyslam you off this loft."

"Pfft. You'd have to lift me first, noodle arms." She flicked his bicep. It was firm and defined. Not Mr. Universe level, but certainly not noodly. He stared thoughtfully at her for a moment, then got to his feet, her eyes following his. "What are you doing?" she asked suspiciously and started to stand. Before she could, though, he shot his arms out and wrapped them around her, his hands lacing in the small of her back. He drew her close, their faces hovering inches apart, and Lynn's heart started to race. He smirked and lifted her off her feet - her heart shot into her throat and laughter burst past her lips. "Put me down!" she cried and thrashed, trying to upset his balance but failing. Red-faced and straining, he spun around and started toward the edge of the loft, swaying back and forth and stumbling against her resistance.

"Noooo!" she cried.

"You're going over," Lincoln grunted teasingly. "Enjoy the fall."

She desperately tried to break his grasp, her body squirming against his and her feet kicking bare inches off the ground. The back of her shirt rode slightly up and Lincoln almost dropped her, but steadied his grip, his warm palms brushing the strip of flesh between the waistband of her jeans and the hem of her shirt. Her heart slammed painfully against her chest, but not from fear, and her stomach knotted. His body grazed against hers, and strange feelings stirred in the pit of her stomach, feelings that made her blood run cold. The urge to throw her arms around him and cling tight, to breathe in his scent and hold him safe against the world, to _be_ held safe against the world, came over her. For a panicky moment, she was frozen. Lincoln's eyes met hers, and electricity seemed to form in the air between them. He stopped walking and she stopped fighting; she could see in his eyes that whatever she was feeling, he was feeling too.

When Luan spoke behind them, they both jumped, Lincoln releasing his grip and Lynn landing on her feet with a stumble. "Will you guys be quiet?" Her voice was a stern, hissing whisper. Lynn swallowed thickly and looked at Lincoln, whose eyes were wide with something approaching guilt. He turned quickly away and raked a hand through his hair. "Yeah, s-sorry," he muttered and took an aimless step before glancing at the sleeping bags. "I'm...just gonna set these up."

Lynn stared after him for a moment, then darted her eyes to the floor. "I-I need to get stuff from the c-car." Looking at her feet in shame, she brushed past Luan and hurried down the ladder, the rungs creaking rustily under her weight. At the back of the Bronco, she slapped her hands on the matted upholstery and bowed her head, her breathing suddenly ragged and her heart pumping wildly.

What was _that?_

She licked her lips and took a deep breath.

She knew _exactly_ what it was.

An image of Lincoln's face right before Luan found them appeared in her mind - his eyes wide and pregnant with understanding, as though he'd just learned a great and terrible secret. She saw his lips, so warm and inviting, and she realized here, now, that if Luan hadn't stopped them, she probably would have kissed him.

Her own brother.

But God help her, standing at the rear of a Ford Bronco in gathering dusk, she realized that she didn't care. She would have ran her fingers through his hair, flicked her tongue across his, and then laid him back in the hay...and when it was over, she would have held him to her naked breast and never let him go.

A shiver raced down her spine and she took another deep breath, seeking but not finding serenity. She glanced up at the loft, then down at her own shaky hands. She'd...she'd ignore it..o-or something. I-It really _wasn't_ right. God, your own brother? Kissing his lips and...and _being with_ him? Gross. It's just...stress. That's all. It's easy to get mixed up at the end of the world, and that's what she was, mixed up. And scared. And worried. And every other negative emotion you can possibly list, and when you're like that, something like your brother holding you in his arms and making you feel safe and comfortable seems pretty damn nice. Bad times, you know, they spawn bad ideas; in the dark, you can't tell what's good and what isn't, and vice versa. It might look good, it might sound good, it might even feel good, but it's not.

It's not.

Sighing, she slammed the hatch and cast an anxious look at the ladder leading to the loft. She had a moment, that's it, just a momentary lapse of reason, but now she was back in control. She took a step toward the ladder but faltered; the ghost of Lincoln's touch haunted her skin, and the fluttering in her stomach told her that she _wasn't_ back in control of anything...and that she never had been. She'd been in charge of the group since Lori died, and in that time, everyone she loved who made it through fell one by one until it was just her, Luan, and Lincoln. She failed them and now she was...she didn't know _what_ she was doing. Something stupid? Wouldn't be the first time, and it might very well not be the last either.

And like all the times she did something stupid before, she had to suck it up and power through. Drawing a deep, determined breath, she climbed the ladder, and found Lincoln and Luan setting up the sleeping bags. Lincoln's shoulders tensed when he heard her, and she looked hurriedly away, her eyes falling on a box of MREs. She wasn't hungry but dinner sounded like a good distraction. "You guys want some food?" she asked.

"Sure," Luan said.

Lincoln didn't respond. "L-Linc?" she asked tentatively.

"Yeah," he said.

They sat in a circle around the sleeping bags and ate by the glow of the lanterns. The sun had fully set, and darkness surrounded them; the lullng sound of cricket noises found Lynn's ears, but did little to ease the disquiet in the pit of her stomach. She stole furtive glances at Lincoln, who leaned against a slanted support beam with one knee drawn up to his chest and the other leg straight out in front of him. He ate slowly, staring down at the patch of floor between his legs, almost as if he were afraid to look up and meet her eyes; that made her stomach turn. Was he feeling the same things she was? Did he notice the way the atmosphere between them crackled the way she did? Did he want to kiss her as badly as she wanted to kiss him?

Her heart knocked unsteadily at the thought that maybe he did, and restless energy filled her body. If the night without wasn't fraught with danger, she'd take a long moonlit walk to clear her head, but it was, and she was trapped in this uncomfortably hot space, smelling hay and dirt and lingering horse, and sneaking unsisterly looks at her little brother. Her arms ached to wrap themselves around his body, her chest to feel the beating of his heart next to hers, her lips to graze his, tasting his breath and…

Gahhh.

She sat her food aside and got got to her feet, not knowing where she was going or what she was doing, only that she needed space. She started toward the ladder, aware that Luan and Lincoln were both watching her, then grabbed the Springfield as an afterthought. "I'm gonna look around," she said, "make sure everything's okay." That was a believable enough excuse. Gotta protect the homestead.

WIthout waiting for a reply, she descended, holding the rifle in one hand and gripping the rungs with the other. At the bottom, wrapped in night, she turned and leaned back against the ladder, putting one hand to her temple and rubbing firmly as though by doing so she could ease the thoughts swirling through her head.

How long had she felt this way about her younger brother? The emotion wasn't new, far from it - it had been festering below the surface, and though she'd suspected that it was there, she never looked too deeply, never lingered. Lincoln had been her rock this entire time, she'd admired and felt overly affectionate toward him since almost the beginning of their journey east. She'd noticed his body, his rugged features, his muscles, his budding masculinity, but she never fully realized how much she appreciated those things.

Hint: Too much.

She sighed deeply and threw her head back. Two months on the road, two months of death and destruction, two months of being afraid, two months of the world bearing down on her shoulders...two months of her body continuing its endless cycle, two months of secretly wanting to be held and cuddled and reassured, of wanting to feel safe. The only man she'd seen in that time was Lincoln...the only man she knew to even be alive was him. Naturally she'd gravitate toward him, right? Incest in the hills (something for which this very state is infamous) doesn't happen just because. The people are isolated, alone, and like anyone else, they have physical and emotional needs, and she knew all too well that when those needs aren't met, you start to go a little crazy. In prison, that femboy down the block starts to look like Beyonce after a while, and in the holler, or the apocalypse, your brother starts to to be not your blood, but a man…

A wry smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. Fucked up line of reasoning, huh? And sparked almost entirely by him picking her up and threatening to throw her off a hayloft. With another sigh, she pushed away from the ladder and went around the front of the Bronco; shafts of moonlight fell through fissures in the ceiling and bathed the darkness in a warm glow. At the door, she peered through the gap between them - two inches, if that - and saw only the night, a cool breeze slipping through and caressing her face. She made her way to the back windows next, moving slowly to avoid making too much noise. At one of the panes, she looked through, but glimpsed only blackness.

As far as she could tell, they were safe.

She went back over to the ladder and leaned against it again.

What was she going to do?

She didn't know...and didn't want to. Get to Washington. Be safe. Then?

'Then' was a hazy, dreamlike borderland that she hadn't penetrated yet. She'd been so focused on actually getting there that she never stopped to wonder what came next. Now's as good a time as any to ponder, right? If she was thinking about _that,_ she wasn't thinking about Lincoln.

When she pictured Washington, she imagined power, phones, internet - that things would be as they were before. Deep down, though, she knew the old world was gone, and if it ever came back, she'd be an old woman by the time it did. They, the living, would have to start over, rebuild from the ground up, claw their way back to the top, and no matter what they did, things would not be the same.

It was a thought terrifying yet exhilarating.

She brushed her bangs out of her face and turned her head slightly to the side, her eyes falling on a rough-hewn support post. In an errant moonbeam, she discerned writing, or rather a carving. Leaning close and squinting, she read it: A heart containing the characters H.L. + F.G. Hieroglyphics from an ancient civilization etched by a smitten heart long stilled. In a fit of fancy that wasn't like her, she wondered if F.G. loved H.L. back or if it was unrequited.

Loving someone who doesn't love you is the worst, isn't it? Lynn didn't think she'd ever actually _loved_ someone - such a strong and mysterious emotion - but she'd certainly had crushes on boys who didn't feel the same. To them she was a friend, just one of the guys, always picked for the team but never for the dance. It's like they never saw her as a girl. Heh. My fault, I guess. I never wanted to be a pretty pink princess, I wanted to roughhouse and have fun. I'm still a girl, though, and sometimes I just want to be held.

Especially now.

She acted strong because that's what her family needed, but inside, she wasn't - she thought she was at one time, but when the shit hit the fan, she turned weak-kneed and quivering, and no matter how hard she tried, the people closest to her kept dying. She could argue that it wasn't her fault a ghoul popped out of nowhere and got Leni, and Lori, and that she had no choice but to leave Lucy and Luna...this is a fallen world and shit happens...but she was the leader, she was the one they looked to for safety and protection…

...and she couldn't give it to them. She failed when they needed her most. She didn't dwell too much because when you're driving along a hazardous road, you don't stare into the rearview mirror: If you do, you crash, and you have your brother and sister to think about. When they got to Washington, though, once things were back to the way they used to be, or close enough _(please, God, it has to be),_ she'd dwell plenty. For the rest of her life, probably. She'd see the horror in Lucy and Luna's eyes as she left them until the day she died - it fact, she wouldn't be surprised if it was the last thing that went through her mind before death took her.

She didn't realize that tears stood in her eyes until she blinked; she brushed them away and turned from the heart.

No, she was not strong, and sometimes she just wanted to be held and comforted. She thought of Lincoln, up there in the loft, her own brother, her strong, capable, handsome brother. Yeah, it was wrong, but she didn't care, she suddenly wanted it so bad she doubled slightly over as if with a cramp. They didn't even have to do anything wrong...he could just put his arms around her and pull her to his chest; stroke her hair; kiss the back of her neck with his warm breath; sooth her with his scent and the sound of his voice.

Her heartbeat sped up and her stomach pinched.

That's all she wanted. She didn't _have_ to turn in his arms and lay her hand on his cheek, didn't really _need_ to gaze longingly into his eyes, or lean slowly in and press her lips to his, to taste his mouth and make love to his tongue with hers, to explore his toned chest with her hand…

A pang of desire rippled from her center and she let out a shivery, pent-up breath. She didn't have to, but she wanted to, damn it.

We're in the right state for it. West Virginia must be getting to me.

She looked up and over her shoulder; faint firelight flickered across the walls and the low sound of Lincoln and Luan talking drifted to her ears. Part of her wanted to go back up there, to sit next to him and maybe creep her hand into his, but another part, a small but vocal part, wanted to stay away. _He's your brother; it's not right; you might ruin your relationship with him; scare him off; it's the end of the world, you don't have time to catch feelings; excuse, excuse, excuse._ Or maybe it was logic and _but I really want it_ was the excuse.

Sgh. She didn't know. Matters of the heart are hella confusing...so are matters of the mind, when you come right down to it. She couldn't stay down here forever, and she couldn't avoid Lincoln forever...even if she wanted to.

Which she didn't.

Slinging the rifle over her shoulder, she climbed the ladder; Lincoln sat where she'd left him, and Luan was snuggled in her sleeping back, eyes closed. "...that one," she was saying.

"Best prank you ever pulled," Lincoln replied with a sad, remisencet smile. He glanced up at Lynn, then quickly back down at his lap. Lynn hesitated, then went over and sat on her sleeping bag next to Luan. She unshouldered the rifle and sat it against the wall, then, in the absence of anything else to do, scooted down and stretched out. The silence was heavy and dark, and for a long time she searched her mind for something to say, but found nothing. Maybe things would look better in the morning.

She kicked her shoes off and rolled onto her side.

Or maybe...maybe they would look the same.


	7. Day

_**My tongue is hot and burnin'**_

 _ **When I try to speak**_

 _ **Spirit is so willing**_

 _ **My flesh is gettin' weak**_

 _ **\- Alice Cooper (Zombie Dance, 2005)**_

Brilliance, and heat, stinging. Lynn winced and shifted positions, the sleep nesting in her head like warm wool rapidly dissipating and consciousness creeping in. She was warm, too warm, and blinding light bathed her closed eyelids. _Go way...leeme lone_. She drew a deep breath through her nose, and the earthy smell of dirt and hay filled her nostrils. Hm. Why does my bed….?

In an instant she remembered where she was.

A barn.

And…

 _The lanterns!_

Her heart rocketed into her throat and she blasted to a sitting position, sure that that she'd knocked over one of the lanterns in her sleep and that the entire building would be consumed in flames, burning timbers falling from the ceiling and thick, poisonous smoke filling the air. When her eyes flew open, however, she saw only Lincoln sitting across from her, a can of baked beans in one hand and a spoon half raised to his open mouth in the other; a helping dropped back in with a wet _plop_.

Lynn looked around - no fire. She glanced up...and that's when she saw it, a hole in roof through which a shaft of early morning sunlight fell. Oh, right. Heh. She should have known: She spent close to three hours lying awake on her back last night staring up at the stars and trying but failing to sleep. As they had every other night, she and her siblings slept side-by-side. Luan was in the middle and Lincoln on the other side, so achingly close...so _dangerously_ close.

"Nightmare?" Lincoln asked and shoved the spoon into his mouth. It was only then that she realized he was dressed only in his jeans, his chest bare. She whipped her head away and swallowed thickly, her cheeks blazing furiously.

"Y-Yeah," she lied.

Lincoln nodded understandingly and took another bite. "Me too," he said.

"What about?" Lynn asked, allowing herself to look at him.

He shrugged one shoulder. "I really don't wanna talk about it." He scraped the inside of the can with a shiver-inducing metal-on-metal sound, then licked the spoon. "Yours?"

"No," she said. She crossed her legs and laced her hands across her lap. Next to her, Luan was curled up on her side, her back gently rising and falling. Lincoln nodded deeply and took another bite. The atmosphere was tense between them, in a way it had never been before. She was always easy and carefree around her brother - why wouldn't she be? - but now, with strange and scary feelings stirring in her heart, she was anything but: Her chest pounded, her stomach rolled, and her face blazed. She was conscious of every move she made, of every breath she took, of the fact that she hadn't bathed in several days, and that the Secret she put on her underarms yesterday had worn off and she was beginning to stink.

When her stomach growled loudly, she flinched. Not missing a beat, Lincoln dropped the spoon into the can and held it out. She looked at him, and noted that his eyes wouldn't, or couldn't, meet hers. She reached hesitantly out and took it. "T-Thanks," she said.

"Yep," he replied and got to his feet; Lynn forced her gaze to remain on the can and not drift to Lincoln's body. BUSCH'S read the label. They used to have that commercial, the one with the owner of the company and his dog, Duke. The owner (was his name Bob? He looked like a Bob) would go on and on about the _secret family recipe_ and Duke, who could talk, would try to sell it behind his back. What a traitor, right? It reminded her of _Family Guy_ \- Brian the dog was Peter's so-called best friend but he was _always_ trying to do Peter's wife. "We should get moving soon," Lincoln said and passed in a swirl of disturbed dust, his boots clunking on the planks.

While he pulled his shirt on and started to pack his things, Lynn ate the rest of the beans. Luan woke just as she was finishing and pushed herself up; her eyes were bleary there was hay in her tangled hair. Lynn snickered at her sister's appearance. "Hey, chuckles," she said.

"Morning," Luan mumbled tiredly.

Lynn plucked a piece of straw from the older girl's hair and held it up. "Get it?"

Luan blinked, saw, and snorted. "Good one," she said.

"What can I say? I love _horsing_ around."

Rolling up his sleeping bag, Lincoln laughed, and the sound made Lynn smile widely. She tried to think of another Luanesque pun, but couldn't. She may have groaned at all of her sister's cheesy wordplay, but she had to admit, it was much, much harder than it looked. Someone, somewhere, once said that puns are the lowest form of humor, and maybe they were right, but it took a goddamn mad genius to come up with them at the drop of a hat the way Luan did.

Admitting defeat, she got up and stretched. "Get your stuff, we're going," she told Luan. She knelt next ot Lincoln and rolled her bag up. "How many miles you think we can make today, Linc-O?" she asked simply to have an excuse to talk to him.

"I'd be thrilled with fifty," Lincoln said and zipped his bag up. "I was up looking at the map last night when you and Luan were asleep, and I have the rest of our route officially planned." He pronounced the second to last word with a proud twist.

"What is it?" she asked.

He reached into his back pocket, brought out the map, and rocked back on his knees, unfolding it and spreading it out on the floor in front of them. Lynn leaned in and saw that he'd drawn a zigzagging line in red pen that started, presumably, in Hanging Rock, hooked up then down into Virginia, passed back through the extreme easternmost sliver of the West Virginia panhandle, then crossed into Maryland, where it hugged the Potomac all the way into Washington. Lincoln's arm brushed hers, and her heart pitter-pattered. "We, uh, we...we're here," he said haltingly, as though he felt it too. He tapped the beginning of the line with his index finger. "We stay on 50 until Nian." He traced his finger along the route, brushing over the WV/VA border. "Then we take route 673 to 739 and follow that to Washington. It changes names here and there but it's the same road."

Lynn's eyes went to his hand, splayed on the floor next to her, inches from her own, so close she could extend her pinky and caress his. Her stomach clutched and her heart pounded even faster than it already was. She stole a sidelong glance at him just as he did the same - their eyes met and held, and Lynn's heart bounced. Lincoln darted his gaze from her eyes to her mouth in a quick triangle, his expression stricken, that of a man being drawn inexplicably and inexorably toward something, pulled by unseen hands _and not really minding._ His eyes, which she had thought of as hard many times over the last two months, were soft, limpid pools flecked with pieces of gold, shimmering like murky tide ponds in the light of the sun. His lips sparkled, and anxious claws dug into Lynn's midsection when she imagined giving herself over to feeling and kissing them, her hands threading through his hair and their noses brushing, never -

They both jumped when Luan spoke. "Is there anything to eat? I'm starved."

Like two dreamers wakened from fantasy, they looked away from each other and coughed nervously. "Yeah," Lincoln said, "there's, uh, MREs over by the wall."

As Luan ate, Lynn carried their supplies down the ladder and stowed them in the back of the Bronco. She may not have been the smartest girl in the world (even now that it was almost empty of girls period), and her knowledge of boys might begin and end with what she learned in school, but she knew that Lincoln…

...Lincoln felt the same way.

That thought both exhilarated and terrified her. For intents and purposes, they were running for their lives, constantly surrounded by danger...falling in love, or even lust, was a good way to cloud your mind. Hell, she knew that already: She hadn't been able to think of literally anything other than Lincoln since the previous evening, and she didn't imagine she'd be able to think of anything _but,_ which was not good. She needed to be clear-headed, because even the slightest misstep out here could get her and her brother and sister killed. If she was daydreaming about Lincoln, drawing girlish sighs and staring off into the distance fantasizing about holding his hand, she'd stumble, and that's how you die.

She took a deep breath. When they got to Washington, she could start thinking about...them...but for right now, she needed to think about surviving, needed to give it everything she had.

Back in the loft, she pointedly ignored Lincoln, grabbed the Springfield and the box of MREs, and brought them down, Luan following and Lincoln bringing up the rear. She shoved the box in and slammed the hatch; Lincoln passed behind her and her entire body tingled pleasantly. _No. Bad Lynn. You need to get your head in the game or your team's gonna lose..._ big _time._

Right.

She went around to the driver door, opened it, and propped the Springfield behind the seat. Lincoln opened the passenger side, leaned the M-16 against the dash, then crossed to the barn doors. Lynn kept her gaze downcast as he lifted the wood from the slats and tossed it aside. He pulled them open and came back, climbing in and shutting the door behind him. Lynn turned the key in the ignition, threw the Bronco into drive, and pulled out, looking instinctively left and right for danger but finding nothing save for Lincoln's profile. _Focus_.

The grassy land sloped up from the barn toward the highway, dotted here and there by thick trees. Lincoln grabbed the hanhold above the door and held on as the tires dipped into ruts and the frame jostled. Lynn winced and prayed to a god she didn't believe in that nothing along the Bronco's underside ruptured - a breakdown may have been a minor inconvenience six months ago, but today it was life-threatening.

Thankfully, they reached the highway without incident, a narrow two lane stip of blacktop overhung by wavering branches. She turned left, the tires momentarily spinning in the tall grass before finding purchase on the pavement.

"Road," Lincoln said flatly, and Lynn glanced at him. "Road," he repeated; he stared straight ahead, his face bathed in the amber morning light. "Road."

Lynn cocked a brow. It was starting to sound like a musical chant.

"Road. Road. Road."

Uhhh...I think my brother's broken.

Then the singing started. "When I'm on the road…"

In a flash, Lynn recognized it, a song from Spongebob (or maybe something else). A big, stupid grin that she was powerless to stop spread across her face. In the back, Luan groaned (how does your own medicine taste, sis?). "You are _not,_ " Lynn said disbelievingly.

"I see stuff going by…"

Lynn rolled her eyes. Beyond the windows, woods, driveways, and mailboxes shot past, forming a blurry green mosaic. To the left, a station wagon sat in a slight dip, its front end crumpled against a gnarled tree trunk and on the right a deer stood on the shoulder and watched them warily, like an old woman looking out her front window and wondering who the hell's using her driveway to turn around.

"When I'm on the road…" he paused and seemed to think for a second. "I see blue skies ahead."

Was he really doing this? LOL, what a goofball.

Ahead, the highway dipped down and curved sharply to the left. She spotted the back end of a car and slowed, creeping around the bend - it was alone, and she swung wide to avoid it. Past it, sunlight filtered through the treetops and dappled the lane in golden light.

She caught a flash of movement from the corner of her eye and turned to find Lincoln staring at her, moving stiffly from side to side in his seat like a penguin waddling across a frozen tundra. "Let's all sing the road song...sing it all day long."

Lynn lifted her brows. "No," she said and turned back to the road.

"Come on," Luan said archly, "it'll be fun."

Lincoln and Luan in unison. "Let's all sing the road song...sing it all day long." They both grinned widely at her like members of a cult. _Join us! Join us!_ Lynn shook her head and chuckled, a rush of warm, fuzzy affection coming over her like a blanket, and a twinge of loss pinched her chest. She'd give anything to have the others here. Lori and her bossy self; Leni being ditzy; Luna playing her guitar so loud, and poorly, that it made your ears bleed; Lucy; Lana; Lola; Lisa; Lily; Mom; Dad. She missed them so much.

Tears came to her eyes but she held them back. "Knock it off," she said fondly, "you're gonna make me wreck."

The road curved wide to the left and dipped out of the hills - the land opened up on either side, clusters of houses and buildings appearing here and there. A green sign read ENTERING HANGING ROCK.

"Wonder why they call it that," Lincoln said.

Lynn scrunched her lips in thought and glanced around, but didn't see any rocks, hanging or otherwise. "I dunno." The road crossed a wide, muddy creek with overgrown banks over a low concrete bridge, a sign proclaiming it the NORTH RIVER. "Lot of towns have weird names."

"Umhm," Lincoln said, "you know there's a town in Austria called 'Fucking'?" As soon as the words left his mouth, his cheeks turned red and he suddenly found something very interesting to look at out the window. Lynn blushed too, mainly at how cute he was.

In the back, Luan grinned. "My favorite town name is Clown Junction. It's in Texas."

Lynn glanced incredulously in the rearview mirror. "Really? That's a place?"

"Yep," she said, then frowed. "It was named for a bunch of clowns who were killed in a train wreck in, like, 1903 or something. There's a big cemetery full of them. I guess you could say they were _dying_ to get in."

She snickered and Lynn rolled her eyes. On the right, six ghouls shambled aimlessly through the parking lot of a Liberty gas station, turning and lumbering after the Bronco as it passed. Loating bubbled up on Lynn's chest and she felt the perverse urge to pull a U-turn, go back, and run them over. The dead, from what Lisa said, were mindless creatures driven by hunger. _Worse than animals, even, as they live for nothing else._ It was hard to hate them then, but at the same time, it was hard _not_ to. She watched them kill her parents and six of her sisters - put yourself in her shoes and try _not_ to despise the fucking things.

Not for the first time, she found herself wondering how they were even able to hunt - she'd seen some with no eyes or missing half their heads, including eardrums and stuff. Lisa was stumped and said that she doubted they _detect prey in a conventional manner._

That was another thing that really bothered her if she dwelled on it. What the hell _were_ these things? How did they function? Lisa herself said they broke virtually every natural law she knew of _and some I've probably yet to discover_. She still believed, however, that there was a _logical explanation for their existence._ Lynn didn't believe in god, or at least she didn't think she did, but lying awake at night, cold, scared, and alone, listening for telltale sounds in the night, it was all too easy to think that they were a plague, a souped up version of Old Testament locusts, that God unleashed upon the world to cleanse its sins.

Not that there weren't a lot - the world, and many of the people who inhabited it, frankly sucked. Human beings, Lynn had discovered in her sixteen years, are petty, ignorant, selfish, spiteful, and hate-filled, especially that last one. You ever notice how there's always a group to look down on, someone that you're 'better' than? For some it's blacks or gays, for others it's people from the other side of town, for others still it's people who write a certain type of fiction. Bigotry knows no bounds, even where it should: Groups that have suffered from it turn around and shower derision on someone else - an endless cycle of abuse and passing the buck that was so ingrained in us, a damning red thread woven through the very fabric of our society, that we perpetuated it _and justified it._

 _It's okay for_ us _to hate_ you _, because_ [insert bullshit sociopolitical excuse here]. And that's what it was, an excuse: People are naturally inclined to hate, and they either try to transcend their hatred, or they find a way to indulge it. _Well, you know blacks_ steal; _Republicans are all racists, and it's okay to hate racists; Christians are this; liberals are that._ On and on like a merry-go-round.

Maybe...maybe the world ending wasn't such a bad thing after all.

She thought of her parents, her sisters, her life before - the world may not have been a nice place, but she was happy.

No, the world ending _wasn't_ a good thing, but she couldn't say that the human race as a whole hadn't earned their judgement. It's just a goddamn shame that God took the wheat with the chafe. If the Bible is to be believed, he has a _bad_ habit of doing that. One time he flooded the whole world, and every so often he smited large groups of people, babies and children included. Hell of a guy, huh?

A green sign loomed out of the trees:

CAPON BRIDGE 8

WINCHESTER VA 28

"Twenty-eight miles," Lincoln commented then glanced at Lynn. "If we're lucky we can make Maryland by nightfall."

The land dipped down from the right shoulder to a narrow, rushing stream; rocks and fallen tree trunks jutted from the water, and on the east bank the terrain inclined sharply, trees crowding around tangles of vegetation. A box truck plowed through the guardrail at some point and lay in the creek on its roof, and in the southbound lane, a silver minivan sat frozen with its back door open. Three bodies lie crumpled on the pavement - the occupants or ghouls they killed, Lynn couldn't tell, and didn't particularly want to.

"We're gonna start seeing more zombies," she said. They were approaching a fairly large town (pre plague population of twenty-seven thousand, per the atlas) and were drawing ever closer to the D.C. metro area (once home to over six million). From here, the number of ghouls would only increase. "Which means we gotta be on our toes."

Lincoln sniffed. "We've _been_ on our toes."

"Well, now we gotta be on the very freaking _tips_."

The road wound along a ridgeline now, a steep hill on the left and a wooded drop to the right. Two blue and gold West Virginia state police cruisers sat nose to nose across the highway in the distance beyond a crooked line of stalled vehicles. Lynn eased off the gas and rolled her eyes. What was with all these goddamn roadblocks anyway? Did the government actually think they'd _help?_

Closer, she pulled to the left and stopped, leaning over the wheel. There was a strip of grass between the road and the embankment wide enough to accomodate the Bronco; they could bypass both the jam _and_ the block.

She spun the wheel and pressed on the gas, leaving the blacktop; the Bronco jostled and shook, and as she had earlier, Lynn grimaced.

"You're good," Lincoln said. "You got a foot of clearance."

Lynn glanced over; the jam crept by, dead bodies slumped behind wheels, blood splattering windshields, a giant crow sitting on the fender of a Camaro and glaring at them with an almost human malignancy that made Lynn shiver. A corpse in a Camry moved, its head turning slowly and its yellow eyes flickering with recognition. Its mouth fell open and it pawed at the closed window, its broken nails dragging along the glass. Lincoln flipped it off.

When they reached the police cars, Lynn spotted four bodies, one sitting against the door of one of the cruisers - a skeleton in a brown uniform, the top of its skull missing and a gun clutched loosely in one hand. A man in a plaid shirt lay sprawled on the hood of a white Chevy Sonic, a shotgun across his chest. Looked like a shootout: The man in plaid must have _really_ not liked being told he couldn't pass.

Clear, she swung back onto the highway and pushed down on the gas. "Looks like there was a gunfight back there," Lincoln said.

"I thought the same thing," Lynn replied. On the right, the trees fell away, revealing a majestic view of a green valley dotted with white farm houses, red barns, grain silos, and far-flung clusters of buildings masquerading as towns. The sky, blue and crowded with fluffy white clouds, seemed to sweep into forever, and humped green mountains defined the horizon.

"Wonder who won."

Lynn snorted. "No one. They were all dead."

"Yeah," he allowed, "but who died last?"

She started to answer, but stopped to think. "Not the guy in plaid," she said. "One of the cops pegged him then either died from their wounds or left."

"If they left, why didn't everyone drive through?"

Lynn rolled her eyes. "I don't know, Linc. Maybe they were all already dead."

The road bent around a tree-crowded hill, then fell down a gentle grade before crossing over a green truss bridge. A white house stood on this side, and across from it a general store with a dirt lot and two rusted gas pumps. A metal sign read CAPON BRIDGE in white lettering - beyond, a church sat on one side of the road and a rush of houses on the other.

In town, Lynn swung around a stalled F1-50. A bank, a hotel, a hardware store, and a cafe overlooked empty, tree-lined sidewalks. A few bodies lie scattered here and there, and movement behind a doctor's office window suggested they were being watched. "Wow," Luan drew, "a comedy club. I didn't think a town this small would have one."

Lynn glanced to the right and saw a shopfront with COMEDY LTD over the door. A piece of paper was taped to the glass, probably informing patrons that they were closed until further notice. "Guess the people here have bad taste too," Lincoln said, and Lynn laughed.

Luan's face crinkled and she slapped his arm. "I do _not_ have bad taste," she said indignantly. "You just fail to comprehend the brilliance of my comedic genius."

Lynn and Lincoln were still laughing when the road left Capon Bridge and started into the foothills. "That might be the funniest joke you've ever told," Lynn said, brushing a tear from her cheek. In the back, Luan sniffed, crossed her arms, and glared at the window. "We're just playing with you, chuckles," Lynn assured her.

"I know," Luan said without turning, "you and Stinkoln both love my jokes."

In the passenger seat, Lincoln grated at the mention of his hated childhood nickname - bestowed by Lynn herself, of course. Hey, it wasn't _her_ fault he came out of the bathroom with a big brown skid mark on the back of his undies when he was five. "Remember why I started calling you that, Stinky?" she asked and swatted his arm with the back of her hand.

He smile tightly and nodded. "I remember."

"We spent all day trying to find that awful smell," Luan giggled. "And it was you the whole time."

Lynn laughed at the memory of her and her entire family scouring the house trying to find the source of the awful stench, sniffing the air and looking behind every piece of furniture, only to finally track it back to Lincoln and his shitty drawers. She was standing right there when Dad, nose crinkled, bent over and pulled the back of Lincoln's pants away from his butt, then recoiled like a little girl who'd just walked into a spider web. _Good God, it's Lincoln!_

"...and Dad screamed like a little girl," Luan was saying. She covered her mouth with her hand to stifle her laughter. Lincoln stared gamely out the window and took it, pretending he wasn't embarrassed but blushing furiously.

"Then he snatched him up and ran him to the bathroom," Lynn said and glanced at Lincoln. "It's like he'd never seen poop before in his life."

"To be fair, it was the worst poop _I_ ever smelled," Luan said and waved her hand in front of her face.

Lynn nudged Lincoln's arm. His blush was deeper now, blazing, and it was the cutest thing she had ever seen. "It was all down his legs."

"In his socks."

The road filtered out of the hills, and the terrain suddenly flattened, wide, grassy fields pushing against both edges. Power lines marched along one side and a rail fence appeared then disappeared on the other. A house flashed by, two stories, red roof, wraparound porch. Lynn opened her mouth to say _on his balls,_ but her throat caught and now _she_ was blushing.

WINCHESTER VA 10 said a sign.

"Not as bad as the time you puked all over the table, though," Luan said, and Lynn's heart dropped. She forgot all about that.

When she was ten, she vomited all over Thanksgiving dinner, splattering literally everything with mushy stomach chunks: The turkey that Mom spent twelve hours on; Dad's famous meat stuffing; the cranberry sauce; even the pumpkin pie for later. "I was sick!" she said hurriedly, her cheeks growing hotter. She stole a sidelong look at Lincoln, and his sharp little smirk was like an icepick in her guts. That was literally the most embarrassing moment of her life, and the thought of Lincoln thinking of it made her kind of queasy.

In the back, Luan laughed. "Your face turned literally green. I thought that only happened in cartoons." She pretended to gag, and Lincoln pressed his hands to his stomach with a husky _I don't feel so good, guys,_ which is what Lynn said right before she blew.

She sucked her lips in and stared at the road ahead, blushing so hard and hot she knew both Lincoln and Luan could see but not caring. She had to get the heat off her and quick. "Remember that time you got caught eating boogers in class and everyone laughed at you?"

Luan paled. "That never happened."

"Yes it did," Lynn said, "the whole school was talking about it. You were a laughingstock."

A gas station flanked the left side of the road, surrounded by a gravel lot, and on the other, a narrow road branched off and climbed a brief hill before disappearing. A big white sign with a red cardinal on it rose in the distance, and Lynn squinted, the words clearing and forming the closer they got. VIRGINIA WELCOMES YOU. "Heh," she said, silencing Luan, who was still protesting about her laughingstock status (she totally was one, by the way), "new state."

Reaching forward, Lincoln opened the glovebox and pulled out the map, unfolding it with a thoughtful hum. He studied it for a moment then looked up. "We are eight miles from Winchester," he stated.

"If anyone has to pee, let's do it now," Lynn declared, "I wanna make as few stops as possible."

"I have to go," Lincoln said.

"Me too," Luan added.

Lynn did too, actually. She slowed and looked around for a good place to stop, spotting a clearing up ahead on the right. She pulled to the side of the road and scanned it: A grassy meadow on the C shaped bank of a river. Good enough. "Alright, let's be quick," she said and got out into hot day. Lincoln and Luan followed, Lincoln grabbing the M-16 and Luan tucking the Glock into the small of her back. Nary a breeze stirred the rain starved trees, and slimy, piss warm sweat instantly spring to Lynn's forehead. She went around the front of the Bronco and stood next to Lincoln, her eyes narrowing against the glare of the sun. "See anything?" she asked and put her hands on her hips.

He shielded his face with his hand and looked around. "No. We should be good." He threw the M-16 over his shoulder and went down the embankment. Luan followed, and Lynn went last, scanning the trees for signs of oncoming dead but seeing none. Lincoln went off toward the trees crowding the clearing's eastern half while Lynn and Luan gravitated toward the western half. Closer, Lynn could hear the gurgle and splash of the river streaming over rocks and swirling in tiny pools along the shore.

When they were out of sight of Lincoln, screened behind a large tree, Lynn unslung the Springfield and leaned it against the trunk. "Cover me while I pee," she said and unbuttoned her jeans. Luan took the Glock out and watched the forest while Lynn squatted; a warm breeze rustled the branches and plastered her sweaty brown bangs to her forehead. "Do you see Lincoln?" she asked.

Luan turned and looked across the field. "No," she said over her shoulder.

Even though she knew he was probably fine, her stomach crushed and she swallowed thickly - like a worried mother, images of him being overwhelmed and torn apart danced hatefully through her mind, and her heart started to race. She hurried up and finished, stood, and yanked her pants up. She grabbed the Springfield and held it lengthwise, her eyes going to the opposite side of the field and seeking, but not finding, her brother.

Luan brushed past and stopped. "I, uh...I actually have to poop."

With a deep sigh, Lynn rolled her eyes. "Really, chuckles?"

"Sorry," Luan said with a sheepish smile. "I'll be quick, I promise."

While Luan pulled her panties off and squatted, Lynn leaned against the trunk, her back to her sister and her eyes darting along the trees. They were spaced fairly widely apart, giving ample room to see, yet Lincoln was nowhere. Anxious claws dugs the the pit of her stomach and her heart slammed faster. She glanced over her shoulder to make sure there were no ghouls in sight, then stepped to the edge of the treeline, cupped her hands to her mouth, and called his name, her voice echoing through the woods like a cannonade. She winced but listened intently - save for the river and the crisp stirring of branches, the clearing was silent.

She nervously chewed her bottom lip and glanced back at Luan; her head was down, knees bent, hands balled into fists at her stomach. Next she looked beyond her sister:The forest stood empty save for shimmer shafts of sunlight. She turned to the clearing. "Lincoln!"

Nothing.

That was it. "Are you okay for a minute?" Lynn asked and looked around again. "I need to go make sure Linc's okay."

Luan's head jerked up, her eyes pooling with apprehension. "I'm just gonna go see," Lynn hastened to say. "It should take me two minutes. If that. The forest is empty, nothing's going to bother you."

For a moment Luan stared at her in dread, then seemed to shake herself awake and nodded. "O-Okay. Yeah."

Before the words were even fully past her lips, Lynn was stalking across the grass in big, hurried strides, her chest tight and her stomach a raging tempest. She told herself he was fine, and in a way she _knew_ he was...but, goddamn it, she loved him and she was starting to really worry. Can't blame a girl for that, can you?

She reached the treeline and paused at a wide, leafy spruce, her gaze sweeping left and right. Sunlight fell through the treetops and made coins of brilliance on the ground, but aside from that, the day was alone, and Lynn started to hyperventilate, imagining a million terrible scenarios that all ended with her losing the boy she loved. "Lincoln?" she called and took a step forward, a twig snapping under her foot. Grass rustled to her left, and she spun, the rifle coming up.

A squieerl darted out and flew up a tree.

"Lincoln!"

She licked her lips and went into the forest, her steps quick but usure and her head turning back and forth. There was a slight rise ahead, and when she crested it, she froze.

Lincoln stood about thirty feet away, his back to her and his hips thrust forward, head thrown back. His arm moved furiously at a task she could not see, but could damn well guess - her heartbeat increased and a hot flush crept across her face. _He's jacking off._

Her jaw dropped and heat blossomed in her stomach like a swelling leaden balloon; the spot between her legs twinged pleasantly. Suddenly breathing was hard and she was so hot she felt like she was running a fever, the kind that scrambles your brain and kills you because it's over 105. She flicked her eyes up and down his body, the tip of her tongue unconsciously swiping her bottom lip, a bitch in heat licking her chops over the studly pitbull next door.

Cocking her head and listening, she could _hear_ it: His hand gliding wetly up and down his shaft, spreading his warm, sticky precum over his hot flesh. Her breath caught and the juncture of her thighs quivered in dumb, primal lust...quivered to be touched, stroked, ravaged…

She swallowed thickly and fought to draw air into her bursting lungs. She saw herself going to him, slipping her hands over his shoulders and pressing her lips to his ear, his scent wrapping itself around her like a cloak. _Let me help you with that, Linc._ She saw them kissing passionately, his pants around his ankles and her hand stroking him up and down, their tongues lashing one another, his hand slipping into her jeans, between her legs, his fingers exploring her and parting her tacky lips, caressing the opening of her femininity...

Wet heat soaked through the fabric of her underwear, and her will, her resolve to focus on surviving instead of her heart, and her body, snapped like a brittle piece of ice. She took a step forward…

Across the field, Luan Loud took a deep, shivery breath and strained, her eyes closing and her teeth baring. When relief came, she sighed and wiped her hand across her forehead, collecting beads of sweat and shaking them off. Her stomach clenched again, and she sighed in frustration.

This was the problem with holding your poop; when you finally let it all out, it either comes hard, or it comes _a lot_ , and right now it was a little of both.

She couldn't remember the last time she went number two, but she thought it was the night they camped in a farmhouse on the Ohio/West Virginia border. Her reasoning was this: Might as well use a toilet while I have one.

Commodes, like a lot of other things from the old world, were a rare luxury these days - more often than not, you had to go outside, and that was that. When it came to peeing, she really didn't mind. She did _not_ like pooping outside, though, and she avoided it as much as she could. She also didn't like being outside period, but right now her stomach hurt so bad that she didn't care, and Lynn was around - she'd keep her safe. She might not think she was (if the things she said in her sleep sometimes were anything to go by), but she was a good leader and did her best...the best that _anyone_ could do. Things happened - Lucy and Luna, Lori and Leni, but those weren't Lynn's fault. They just happened.

Yesterday, when Lynn told her she needed to be strong, that she needed her, Luan made the conscious decision to _be_ stronger. Lynn had done so much and had an entire world's worth of stress on her shoulders - and here was little Luan too afraid to even walk past a window lest zombie see her shadow. She couldn't help it - those things terrified her to the point of physical sickness - but Lynn outright said _I need you to be strong, Luan, please, I need help,_ and Luan would do her best to return the support that her younger sister had given her.

Even if it meant digging deep for bravery that probably wasn't there and doing things on her own...like being outside.

A shiver raced down her spine, and her stomach growled sickly. "Hurry up," she told her bowels in a low, impatient whisper. She glanced over her shoulder and saw only trees and shadows. She faced forward again and squeezed her eyes closed as a spasm wracked her center. Ugh, this is awful! From now on I'm going every other day whether I need to or not. She hung her head and gritted her teeth; blood crashed against her temples as the contents of her stomach shifted down and something came out with a wet _pffft_. Pain wrapped around her middle like a band. Alright, she thought, this is it.

Closing her eyes, she clenched her jaw and pushed with all her might, the sound of the blood in her head masking the rustle of grass as something approached, and the thin, hissing moan it emitted. She strained hard and could feel progress; one more like that and she'd be done. Where was Lynn, anyway? Hopefully she found Lincoln and they were okay.

After this, she decided, she'd finish and go looking for them. Who knows, she might even wind up saving the day.

She bore down one last time. She didn't hear the shuffling footfalls behind her, or smell the sickly sweet stench of rotting flesh - she didn't know she was in danger until she felt its cold fingers threading through her hair. Her blood turned instantly to ice and her heart stopped mid-beat.

Before she could scream for Lynn if her vocal cords hadn't been locked, she felt its crooked teeth on the side of her throat…

* * *

Lynn paused in her tracks, her stomach rippling with nerves. She'd closed almost of a quarter of the distance between her and Lincoln but she was beginning to have second thoughts. The vision of him laying her back in the grass and kissing her deeply made her tingle, but deep inside, there still remained a very vocal and somewhat strong part of her that was repulsed by the idea, disgusted with herself for wanting him to make love her, for wanting to give her virginity to her own brother...and scared. Scared he would reject her, scared he'd look at her as though she were a strange and loathsome creature, scared that he _wouldn't..._ that he would accept her... _and then what?_

She gathered as much saliva in her dry mouth as she could and swallowed hard, her throat tacky and constricted. His arm moved faster now, and she could hear tiny grunts escaping his lips - she also imagined she could smell him, musky and manly, his scent caressing her nostrils and making her salivate.

That morning, before leaving the barn, she told herself that she couldn't focus on her heart, or her desire, because in the brave new world she and her siblings inhabited, even the slightest lapse of reason could get you killed. Her mind blared this in huge, bold letters, but her heart and her body pulled her to him, wanted to be made love to, and to be held in the warm afterglow, to feel Lincoln's strong arms around her. She wanted it so badly she whined in the back of her throat like a puppy, but it would be better if she didn't. She knew this innately, yet her feet carried her forward regardless. She licked her lips and realized that her hands were shaking with desire and her knees quivered. She was wet with arousal, her sex plump and swollen against the fabric of her underwear, the kiss of which increased her passion with every tentative step.

 _Stop...turn around and forget it._

Her body did not obey her mind's command, though - she kept going, hesitating only when she was close enough to reach out and touch him. His breathing was heavy like hers, the skin across the back of his neck flushed like her skin. They were both turned on, both wanted the same thing. She swallowed and lifted her hand…

...but froze when a blood-curdling scream echoed through the forest.

Lincoln whipped around, his eyes widening. Lynn was too shocked to think, too shocked to flick her eyes down to his penis, clutched firmly in his hand. Her brain, hazed with lust, worked slow processing the information her ears were sending it.

Then, all at once, it hit her, and her heart sank into her stomach.

Luan.

Lincoln shoved his dick back into his pants and zipped them up, then knocked into her as he passed, waking her fully from her reprieve. Heart slamming, she pounded after him, her stomach throbbing with dread. She moved like a woman in a dream - too sluggish, too slow. Her sister was in trouble and every moment dragged into forever. Oh, God; Oh, God; Oh, God, why did I leave her alone? WHY DID I LEAVE HER ALONE?

Somehow she passed Lincoln and reached the clearing first, screeching to a halt at what she saw: Ghouls swarming out of the woods, a dozen thick, two dozen, shambling through the trees and lurching through tall grass. Her heart exploded against her ribs and her eyes went to the spot where she'd left her sister;: Dead lumbered forth, arms raised.

Horror burst inside of her and she screamed Luan's name. She started to run but Lincoln grabbed her shoulder. "Stop!" he cried. "There's too many!"

She wrenched away and he threw his arms around her from behind, pulled her back. Mindless with panic, she threw the Springfield forward then rammed the butt into his stomach: He let out a breathless _umph_ and released, dropping to his knees. She darted across the field, her ponytail streaming behind her and tears filling her eyes. She was vaguely aware that more ghouls surrounded the Bronco, two dozen, three, their moans combining to form a hellish cacophony. The ones spilling from the woods all turned toward her as she streaked to her sister, but she didn't care - her fear for Luan made her fearless for herself.

The closest ghoul sprang at her, and she brought the butt of the rifle up in an arc, smashing it in the chin and driving it to the ground. A second came forward, but she lifted the rifle and shot it in the head. More gunfire filled the day - Lincoln. She couldn't worry about him now. He could take care of himself, Luan couldn't, Luan needed her more.

Four ghouls moved toward her - a burst of rounds struck their chests with hollow _thumps_ , tearing off bits of blackened flesh and pushing them back. Another approached from directly in front of her - she hit it so hard with the butt that its head came off with a wet snap and dropped into the grass.

She reached the treeline and came to a crashing halt, the entire world freezing around her. A group of zombies knelt in a cluster around Luan, their dead hands ripping ropey intestines from her gaping center and shoving red, slippery organs into their mouths. Luan's head turned weakly back and forth, her lips stained with blood and her eyes hazy with shock and approaching death. Every muscle in Lynn's body went slack and the pit of her stomach dropped. When Luan's eyes met hers, she saw pain, suffering, and accusation. _You did this to me...you let me die._

Tears spilled down Lynn's cheeks and she started to cry, her head hanging. When something grabbed her from behind, her heart rocketed into her throat. "Come on, goddamn it!" Lincoln yelled into her ear and dragged her back. Luan held her gaze, and Lynn wept harder, her lips trying to form the words _I'm sorry_ but producing tortured sobs instead.

"Move your fucking feet!" Lincoln screamed.

The terror in his voice penetrated her brain, and she looked around: Easily a hundred ghouls were scattered across the field, marching toward them like an advancing army - standing between them and the Bronco. The vanguard was only feet away, and Lincoln, panicking now too, flung her behind him, brought the M-16 around, and opened fire, raking back and forth, striking few in the head but many in the chest. He turned, and the terror in his eyes snapped Lynn fully out of her trance. "Come on!" he yelled and snatched her by the hand; together they ran, their feet splashing in the river and slipping over wet rocks, warm water gushing into their shoes and creeping up the legs of their pants. Lynn looked back, like Lot's wife at the destruction of Sodom; a million of the living dead lumbered across the field. Her eyes went one last time to the spot where Luan lay dead, her body hidden by thick vegetation. _My fault,_ she thought, _all my fault._

"Lynn!"

She turned as Lincoln splashed toward her and snatched her hand again - she hadn't realized he let go. "Come _on!"_

Lynn came, but over the hill and through the woods, her sister's specter followed.


	8. A Haunted Heart

_Gloom. Tiled floors. Shelves stocked with aspirin, condoms, hemorrhoid cream, and Ace bandages. Lynn paused at a display of prepackaged first aid kits and picked one up, turning it over in her hands and reading the label. "We don't need that," Lori said as she passed behind and made her way toward the pharmacy in the back._

" _We might," Lynn said._

 _They were in a strip mall Rite-Aid just across the border in Ohio, Lincoln in the front keeping watch and Luan sticking so close you'd think they were siamese twins. Lisa, in the van with Leni ("We'd both me more of a hindrance than a help") sent them in with a list of things they might need, including heavy-duty painkillers. She handed it specifically to Lynn, but as soon as they got through the door, Lori plucked it from her hand._

 _Presently, Lori went through a door flanking the counter and disappeared into the back. Lynn sat down the first aid kit and moved onto a rack of magazines: COSMOPOLITAN, GLAMOUR: WOMEN WEEKLY._ Ten sex tips to drive your man wild; summer sex confessional; moves to make him want you. _Lynn blew a raspberry. That's all these things talk about. Sex, sex, sex. They're worse than a porno._

 _Her interest was aroused, though; like it or not, she was a girl and she got turned on, even now, during the apocalypse. It made her feel guilty to feel that way when her parents and three of her sisters were dead and everything was falling apart around her._ Everything's collapsing, _she'd think as she laid in her sleeping bag at night,_ and here I am thinking about my freaking crotch. _She plucked one from the stand and opened it up, landing on an interview with Oprah. Nope, not what I wanna see._

" _Lynn!"_

 _She jumped a foot and whipped her head toward the pharmacy. Lori leaned over the counter from the other side, her hands splayed on the edge. "Are you coming?"_

" _Yes," Lynn replied sharply._ Just as soon as I read some spicy sex stuff. " _Give me a minute."_

 _Lori rolled her eyes and turned away. "Whatever."_

 _You know...Lynn loved her sister dearly, but she could be so damn_ bossy _sometimes. As soon as Mom and Dad...you know...Lori stepped in and took charge like a dictator. Do this, don't do that blah blah blah. She was the oldest and had experience managing everyone, so it was only natural that everyone would look to her as a leader (even Lynn, though she wouldn't admit it out loud), but sheesh. Can the Hitler routine._

 _She leafed through the pages until she found it: A whole page of things to drive a guy wild. Hmm. Lynn had never been with a guy, had barely held hands with one, so this was fascinating new ground for her. She was ready to ingest every single word as gospel, commit it to memory, and one day put it to use on a guy...if they weren't all dead, but a scream shattered the silence, and she jerked, the magazine falling from her hands. A single gunshot followed, rolling through the darkened store like thunder. When Lynn burst through the door, she found Lori standing dazed in a corner, a zombie freshly dead at her feet and a gaping, bloody bite mark on her right forearm._

 _Later._

 _Lori lie on the floor, thrashing and screaming, Lincoln pinning one wrist to the ground and Luna the other. Lucy held a foot and so did Luan. Leni sat against a shelf, her knees drawn to her chest. Lisa held a lantern aloft, the flickering glow casting her face in hellish light. Lynn gulped and looked at the machete in her hand; the blade was wickedly sharp, and gleamed in the firelight. "Do it," Lisa said. "It's the only chance we have."_

On the floor, Lori let out a wail.

 _In the past month, since the dead started to walk, Lynn had seen and done things that haunted her sleep - she'd found that she was tougher in ways than she thought, and weaker too. She loved her family, though, and she would do anything to keep them alive, but this? Chopping her own sister's arm off while she fought and sobbed on the floor? Her stomach knotted and she began to shake._

" _Now, goddamn it!" Lisa roared._

 _Lynn darted her eyes to Lori's - pooled with primal fear. "Please don't," the older girl said in a broken, beseeching tone. Lynn looked next at the wound, and though she couldn't see it, she knew that Death festered there, creeping slowly through Lori's body like the coming night, cursing and infecting everything it touched. Once it got to her heart, she was a goner._

 _It was either take the arm or watch her sister die._

 _Baring her teeth in a pained grimace, Lynn lifted the machete and brought it down…_

She collapsed against a tree trunk and bowed her head, tears forming at the corners of her eyes. Lincoln turned, saw, and came back. "Come on," he panted, "we have to _go_."

They'd been in the woods for what seemed like an eternity, but in actuality couldn't have been more than twenty minutes, running at first, leaping over fallen trees and kicking through drifts of dead leaves from autumns past. Their pace eventually slowed to a brisk walk, and as the tides of adrenaline began to recede, the horrible realization that Luan was gone, and that it was her fault, fully struck Lynn, like a bullet. She remembered the tortured look in her sister's eyes, the hurt and betrayal, and her knees gave out. Lincoln caught her and held her up. His face was ashen and his eyes dark. When he spoke, his voice seemed muted, faraway. "We have to go," he said patiently, "they're not that far behind."

 _Matthiasville, Ohio, spread out on either side of US 23, a cracked and sunbaked two lane highway divided by a grassy median. The land surrounding it was tabletop flat and parched, the grass brown and the clustered groves of trees wilted by intense summer heat._

 _They'd been following 23 for the last hundred miles, a trek that took three days because near Waynesburg Vanzilla's front driver side tire exploded, sending them careening into a ditch and leaving them without a vehicle. They sheltered that night in a farmhouse overlooking a stand of trees, and the next morning Lynn, Luna, and Leni went off in search of a replacement. They came across the Bronco parked on a narrow unpaved road running behind the farm, the keys danging from the ignition and the back already loaded with boxes of supplies; it was as if God Himself had put it there for them._

 _It was mid-afternoon when they reached the town; the interstate bisected it and flowed under 23 like a frozen river, cars dotting it at sloppy angles. The land sloped down from either side of the highway and turned into fenced yards and surface streets presided over by tiny ranch houses and brick buildings with big glass windows. Lynn took the off-ramp and followed a wide drag past a rush of motels, gas stations, and fast food joints before pulling into an empty parking lot facing a Kroger. They were running low on food and other things - like tampons. Lynn and Luna were both on the rag, and they used the last two during their stop back in Marion._

 _She pulled the Bronco up to the front, spun the wheel, and backed up to the door, getting as close as possible. When there was just enough room to open the hatch, she killed the engine and glanced at Lincoln, who sat in the passenger seat, an M-16 propped between his legs - they stumbled across a military convoy that stalled out east of Parker and took a bunch of guns and medical supplies. There was little in the way of food, though, and no tampons...because of course there weren't._

" _Ready?" she asked._

 _He nodded determinedly._

 _Since taking charge of the group after Lori died, Lynn had come to rely on Lincoln as her right hand man. He was smart, cunning, always planning, and...well...sometimes she just liked looking over and seeing him next to her, knowing he was safe and by her side._

 _In truth, he'd been her second-in-command since Royal Woods, when chaos reigned in the house and no one knew what to do. Lori was useless in the beginning, and Lynn wound up making most of the early decisions. Then, Lori snapped out of it and took control, relegating her and Lincoln to simply part of the pack, not that Lynn really minded...much. She and Lincoln sat next to each other, talked to each other about their nightmares and emotions, and when it came time to leave the van, they did it as a pair, always looking out for one another._

" _Alright, everyone," Lynn said and threw open the door. "Buddy system."_

 _Now that she was in charge, she made sure that her siblings were never alone the way Lori was...the way Lynn_ left _her. Had she been there, Lori would probably still be alive now. It was her fault her older sister was dead, and she would carry that like a black mark on her soul until the day she died, but never again._

 _Never._

 _Outside, everyone paired off and went into the store: Luan and Luna, Lucy and Leni, and Lincoln and Lynn. Lisa stayed in the car to keep watch...and because she was afraid to be outside, no matter how much she denied it._

 _Inside, the store was dark and hot, the stagnant air heavy with the reek of rotting meat and produce. Checkout counters stood empty, shelf-flanked aisles deserted save for carts and things dropped in the final rush for supplies before the store closed. Lynn grabbed a cart and went right, closely followed by Lincoln. "Only things we can cook over an open fire!" she called to her sisters as they spread out. "Or eat cold!" Her voice echoed, and the unnatural quality of it made her shiver._

 _From the front, she made a B-line toward the personal care aisle, only realizing when she got there that Lincoln being there was kind of awkward...she was getting tampons, after all. "Uh...can you go grab some soap?" she asked with a flush._

 _Nodding, he turned and went back down the aisle; Lynn snatched a box of tampons and shoved them under her shirt before he could return. As they went on, she frowned to herself. Hm. She'd never been weird about things like that before - in fact, there were times she actually asked Lincoln to grab her a tampon from the bathroom because the cramps were so bad she couldn't get out of bed. Even so, all of a sudden she was kind of...shy? Nooo, was she? She thought of how she felt when she imagined grabbing tampons in front of Lincoln, her heart bouncing and her stomach tightening. He'd know exactly what she was going to do with them, and also that she was nasty and bloody and…_

 _A loud crash from the other side of the store silenced that thought. Lucy screamed in horror, and Lynn shoved the cart away, then ran as fast as she could to get to her, Lincoln right behind her. What she found…_

 _What she found…_

 _...Leni, lying on the floor, a zombie dead next to her and Lucy holding a bat. Lynn's eyes went to her older sister, and when she saw her stomach laid open, blood gushing and intestines hanging out like ropes of sausage, her nervous system locked up, the air leaving her lungs in a horrified rush._

 _Luan and Luan appeared at the other end of the aisle, Luan's hands flying to her mouth and Luna's face paling. They rushed over and knelt beside Leni, along with Lincoln. Leni wept in pain and fear, howling miserably when Lincoln shifted her._

 _Someone, Lynn wasn't in the frame of mind to know who, got Lisa, and she came in clutching a black leather bag like an old timey doctor making a house call. She examined Leni then took Lynn aside. "There's nothing we can do," she whispered and glanced at the dying girl, their siblings clustered around, Lincoln and Lucy holding her hands and Luan stroking her forehead. Lynn's brain felt muddled, mired, and she had trouble understanding Lisa's words. She was cold too, so cold, and shaking._

" _She's beyond our help," Lisa clarified. "The only thing that can be done is…"_

 _Lynn blinked and found herself standing over her oldest living sister, the Desert Egae in her hand. "It hurts so bad," Leni sobbed, her voice hitching, "please make it stop, Lynn. Make it stop…"_

 _Swallowing thickly, Lynn tried to raise the gun, but it was too heavy, a hundred pounds, a thousand, a million. She looked into Leni's eyes, and she thought she saw the same thing she saw in Lori's: Accusation._ Why did you let this happen to me? You're supposed to be in charge. You're supposed to protect me.

 _The gun fell from her hand as she broke down in tears. Lincoln came over and took her in his arms, his voice soothing._ I don't deserve to be soothed. I killed Leni.

 _Sighing deeply, Lisa got on her knees next to Leni and pulled a syringe from the bag, along with a vial they took from the Toledo Rite-Aid. Holding the bottle upside down, she jabbed the point in and retracted the plunger. "It's alright," she told the crying girl, "this will make the pain go away."_

 _She sank the needle into Leni's arm and pushed a lethal dose of morphine into her body. WIthin moments, her tears stopped and her crying ceased. A minute later, her ragged breathing faded, and her chest no longer fell...no longer rose._

Lynn stumbled and nearly fell to her knees - the blacktop was sudden, the surface uneven, several inches higher than the gravel shoulder. Lincoln darted into the middle of the road and looked around: It crested a hill to the right and continued straight to the left. Dense forest pressed close to either side, broken here and there by driveway entrances flanked by mailboxes. Lynn caught her balance and stepped onto the pavement, her eyes flicking madly around. She didn't see danger, but she never did until it was on top of her and one of her family was dying.

"This way," Lincoln said, nodding toward the straightaway. "That _should_ lead us back to Gore."

Gore was a town they passed through...or were going to pass through...she thought. Thinking was hard, and despite running for hours, days, covered in sweat and dirt and pine needles, she was so cold her teeth chattered. She took a step, but vertigo came over her like a wave, and she almost went down. Lincoln turned and frowned deeply. He came over, put hands on her shoulders, and stared into her eyes, his brow creasing as though he saw something he didn't like. He cupped her cheeks in his palms; an hour ago, him touching her face would have set her soul, and her body, on fire...now it did nothing. "You're really clammy."

A shiver shot down her spine and her knees went weak. She started to fall, but Lincoln grabbed her and held her up. "Fuck," he muttered and looked around as if for help, but there was no help to be had - they were all alone in the world. He turned back to her and held her gaze firmly with his. "I need you to be with me, okay?" he asked patiently. His voice echoed and his movements were blurred - she understood him, though, and she understood their situation.

She nodded slowly. "I-I-I will," she stammered, the first word inexplicably hard to spit out. Lincoln brushed his thumbs over her cheek bones, and the fleeing sensation broke through the haze in her mind.

"I-I'm okay," she said definitely.

Lincoln stared at her for a moment, then took her hand. "Alright. Come on." Threading his fingers through hers, he lead her down the center of the road, their boot heels clicking forlornly on the pavement and seeming to resound through the deserted countryside like the footfalls of a specter stalking an empty tomb. A warm wind slipped through the trees, and Lynn's body shivered violently. Lincoln wrapped his arm around her shoulders and drew her close. "It's gonna be fine," he panted breathlessly, "I promise. I won't let anything happen to you."

Lynn started to cry. How many times had she said that to one of her sisters only to stand aside while the died? How many nights did she lie awake in agony because Lori or Leni or someone else was gone and it felt like a piece of her heart went with them...only to fuck up and get the next one killed?

"It's okay, Lynn," Lincoln replied, his voice strained. They didn't stop, though, they could never stop - they had to keep running, keep hiding like rats, or roaches when you turn the kitchen light on. Her tears turned to mad, braying laughter when she realized that they, she and Lincoln, weren't the living, they.. _,they_ were the dead...lurking in the shadows of the night, darting from one crypt to another. _Gotta stay out of sight, gotta be quiet, don't let them know you're here...they'll come with pitchforks and wooden stakes_. What kind of _life_ is this? Always afraid, always hunted, subsisting just enough to make it to tomorrow and do it all over again.

Those things..they're the new men, and we're the new monsters.

Her feet tangled and she went to her knees, nearly dragging Lincoln with her; she laughed even harder. The pavement hurt even though she was dead.

"Goddamn it, Lynn," Lincoln hissed and dragged her back to a standing position. "Knock it off!"

Right, she had to get serious or she was going to kill Lincoln too.

Then again...how do you kill what isn't alive?

"We're dead," she said through numb lips, "we're dead and this is hell."

 _Every mistake you make is a chance to learn, Lynn's coach once told her, and like her coach advised her, she took that message to heart. When they stopped, they no longer split up, and before they went into a building, she and Lincoln cleared it like two cops on a primetime drama, him going left and her going right, meeting in the middle, a well oiled machine by the time they reached the Ohio-West Virginia state line, a natural border formed by the broad Ohio River._

 _It was late July and they had been on the road for nearly a month; travel at the end of the world was far more time consuming than Lynn imagined it would be. They stopped for three days during the final stages of Lori's infection and were forced to take refuge in a house east of Columbus during a thunderstorm that spawned tornadoes: For ten miles afterwards they followed a wide path of destruction, then came to a bridge that had been taken out by a flash flood. After losing Leni, Lynn was over cautious, and they swung wide around Columbus, adding days and hundreds of miles to their trip. It was worth it to avoid a seething nest of the dead, though._

 _She was also terrified to stop again lest something terrible happen, but on the morning of July 20, trucking down the middle of Route 35 with the river ahead and West Virginia a hilly green landmass on the horizon, she had no choice but to pull off the highway and into the town of Gallipolis, which rests in the shade of the massive Silver Memorial Bridge, a hamlet of dead end streets, decaying old houses, and cracked pavement. There was a Save-a-Lot across the street from an apartment building that looked more like a Soviet housing block she'd seen on TV, and, fighting down dread, she pulled into the parking lot. "Alright, everyone, we gotta be quick," she said into the rearview mirror._

 _While everyone stayed in the Bronco, she and Lincoln went in fast and low, their guns drawn. They found nothing, and brought the others in, save for Lisa, who still stayed in the car whenever she could._

 _Sometime later, maybe minutes, maybe hours, Lynn was shoving cans into the cart when the sharp honking of a horn shattered the silence, making her jump. Lincoln's brow furrowed, and before she could stop him, he was hurrying to the front of the store. She started after, her heart beginning to pound, then remembered that Luna was in the bathroom turned to Lucy. "Go get Luna," she ordered, and Lucy nodded and rushed away._

 _When she reached the front door, Lynn's heart burst: Zombies filled the parking lot, approaching at a shambling gait. They were fresher than usual, and faster too, less than a week dead. Lisa laid on the horn and threw a panicked glance out the window._

" _Fuck," Lincoln muttered. He brought up the M-16 and raked fire across the advancing dead. Lynn lifted her rifle, but caught a flash of movement from the corner of her eye and spun: Four ghouls rounded the corner of the building and rushed at Lincoln. She cried hs name, and he turned, pulling the trigger and spraying them; bullets struck a brick support column and tore chips free. Lynn sensed something behind her: More zombies coming from the other side._

 _Lincoln aimed and fired. Click-Click. "Shit!"_

 _The ones coming from the front were almost at the Bronco, and more were flooding from both sides. Panicking, Lynn shoved past Lincoln and ripped the front door open. "Get in!"_

 _Lincoln started to protest, but three zombies shambled out of the store and threw themselves at him - they weren't in there before; they must have found a back entrance. "Lincoln!"_

 _Lincoln spun and smashed the rifle butt into one's head, but another grabbed him from behind. Lynn ripped the Desert Eagle from its holster and blew its head off. More were coming, many more, and Lincoln, only as brave as a boy of thirteen can be, pulled away from the grasp of a dead woman in sweatpants and dove into the back of the Bronco. Lynn slammed the door and threw it into drive as the frontal assault hit, a thousand dead hands slapping the windows and rocking the ancient vehicle on its tires. Lisa sobbed in terror and Lincoln drew her protectively to his side. She slammed on the gas, and the Bronco shot forward, zombies chasing and hanging onto the sides. "Pull a U-turn!" Lincoln yelled._

 _Ghouls filled the streets and the parking lot, appearing from every direction like dandelions on a yard. She tired to turn right and double back to pick up Lucy and Luna, but the dead were right there, pounding and trying to claw their way in._

 _It was too dangerous._

 _She hit the gas again and burst out onto the street, the tires squealing._

" _Go back!" Lincoln roared._

" _I can't!" she screamed and started to cry, the dam breaking and all of her fear and weakness sweeping through her.. "I can't! I can't! I can't!: She slammed her hands on the wheel. In the rearview mirror, the building was swarmed as if by a seething mass of ants. Certainly Luan and Lucy…_

 _She saw them then, and her breath caught. They were in the front window, their faces twisted in horror, Luna pounding furiously against the glass and screaming silently. Lynn wasn't a lip reader, but what she was saying was clear enough:_ Come back! Don't leave us!

 _The vision blurred, but not before Lucy was dragged away, then Luna, her plam still slapping the window as blood spurted across it. Lynn sobbed all the way into West Virginia, and that night, twenty miles northwest as the crow flies, as she lay in her sleeping bag, she pressed the barrel of the Desert Eagle against her temple, resolved to scatter the horrible images across the floor in red. The only thing that stopped her was Lincoln...and Luan and Lisa, but mainly Lincoln._

 _He needed her, she decided._

Her feet dragged in the grass. Ahead was a white clapboard church with an arched doorway and stained glass windows but no steeple. Woods surrounded it on all sides and a sign stood in the middle of a gravel lot fronting the building. ST. SARAH'S CHURCH. A white twelve seat van sat under a tall wooden pole with a lamp at the top.

At the concrete steps, Lincoln helped her sit then knelt next to her, took her face in his hands, and turned her head to face him. His eyes were big and brown, and full of worry, the corners of his lips turned anxiously down. "Can you hear me?" he asked.

She nodded. Umhm. Her ears rang a little and everything was still kind of in slow-mo, but she could hear him just fine. Unlike Luan. Luan couldn't hear him because she was dead.

Her lips started to quiver and tears shimmered in her eyes. She stared plaintively at Lincoln, her hands in her lap and her face crinkling silently. His features softened and he took her in his arms, pressing her face to the crook of his neck and gently stroking her hair. She gave into her tears and let them overwhelm her. "I killed her," she sobbed, "I killed her, Linc."

"No, you didn't," Lincoln said softly.

"Yes I did," she moaned, her body shaking against his and her tears soaking into the fabric of his shirt. "I was supposed to be watching her." Her voice broke on the last two words. "But I wasn't…" here she hitched, "I wasn't…"

Lincoln shushed her and rocked her back and forth like a mother trying to soothe a fussy baby. She clutched his shirt in both hands, clinging desperately to him as though he were her only salvation...the only thing keeping her from being swept away. When it occurred to her that he was, she cried even harder.

He was all she had left in the world.

 _They were following I-79 northeast of Charleston when Lisa was bitten. It was one of those freak accidents that you might hear about in the news, or at least that's how Lynn thought of it. She certainly never imagined something so strange happening, but by that point she should have known - though she never did._

 _It was mid afternoon and they were stopped west of Newton, the northbound lane flanked by open grass and the southbound by a rugged rock face topped by dense pine trees. They were all sore, road weary, and wanted to stretch their legs, and while they were at it, Lynn decided to make lunch - Campbell's chicken noodle soup over an open fire. Lynn gathered sticks, Lincoln set them up, then Lynn held a pot over the crackling flames while Lincoln, Luan, and Lisa gathered around. With a weary sigh, Lisa laid back in the grass, then shot up again with a pained yelp, her hand flying to her neck. Lynn furrowed her brows, then started when Lisa's fingertips came away bloody. The little girl turned, and her eyes widened: A face, covered in dirt, lay upon the ground as if chopped off and tossed aside. A low, rattling hiss issued from its mouth, and Lynn's blood ran cold. "Oh, my God," she drew darkly, and Lisa began to tremble._

 _No one knows how many murder victims are buried in shallow graves across the United States, but that doesn't matter, because all it took was one...one to graze its teeth across Lisa Loud's neck just hard enough to break her skin...one to kill her._

 _Lynn furiously scrubbed the wound with alcohol, her hands shaking and her breaths coming in quick gasps. She knew it wouldn't work, but she did it anyway; she dumped the entire bottle on it, then half of another. She was crying by the time she was done, and the tears standing in Lisa's eyes, her quivering bottom lip, only made her cry harder._

 _The little girl went through the entire five steps of grief in a matter of two days as they trekked east on Route 4, starting with denial and ending with acceptance. "I'm somewhat frightened," she said, sitting stiffly next to Luan in the back of the Bronco, "but I've come to terms with my inevitable passing."_

 _Good for her, Lynn hadn't. It was her fault...just like all the others. She picked that particular place to stop...that particular spot to build the fire. Three feet to the west, and Lisa would be okay. Instead she was slowly rotting from the inside out_ because of her. _Every night between Newton and Brandywine - four total - she laid awake staring into the darkness, hating herself with such rabid intensity that she wound up literally sick to her stomach._

 _She killed them._

 _She killed them all._

 _Ever the scientist, Lisa kept a log of her infection. The bite began to sting painfully within an hour, and the flesh around it became pink and tender. After a day, her joints started to ache as rigor mortis set in, and that night she began to run a fever. She suffered vivid nightmares, and as they followed US250 through the low, wooded foothills of the Monongahela State Forest, she became so cold that her teeth audibly chattered. At one point, she turned and lifted the back of her sweater, wincing in pain. "Luan...what do you see?" she asked._

 _Luan spared a hurried glance and looked away, her breathing ragged. "B-Bruises," she said._

 _Sighing, Lisa lowered her sweater and sat back against the seat. "My blood's starting to pool."_

 _Two days later, she died in a roadside restaurant and Lynn put her down like she asked - she was the only Loud eternally at rest; Lynn regretted not being able to give the same peace to the others, and if she could do it over again, she would free them all, even if it killed her every time. If she could do it over again, she'd have gone into that pharmacy instead of Lori, and she would have taken the bite her oldest sister took. Everyone would be better off if it was her who died._

Darkness, the only light the faint flicker of candles arranged around them in a semicircle. Lynn watched shadows dance across the stained glass window with a vacant expression. The shock had worn off, and now she felt only grief - deep, gnawing, gnashing grief. She blinked back fresh tears and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

 _You left her to die...you killed her just like you killed the others._

A shudder wracked her body, and Lincoln pulled her close, her butt nestling in his crotch and his hand grazing her breast.

They were in the middle of the aisle on a bed made of blankets Lincoln found in a hall closet, Lincoln's arm wrapped protectively around her. Gleaming oaken pews flanked them on either side, and at the head of the room, Christ watched from his cross, head bowed and arms spread as if to embrace the world. Maybe it was her imagination, but Lynn could feel him judging her, hating her for what she did to her sisters, her entire family whidded away until she had nothing but Lincoln.

Just them.

And one day, she'd kill him too.

She started to cry again, and Lincoln held her tighter. "Shhhh," he said, and nothing more, because what else _could_ he say?

They were all alone in the world now, and suddenly Lynn's entire life revolved completely and totally around him, and his around her. She'd lost so much - everything - but she couldn't lose him; he was it, the last of her loved ones, and she would hang onto him with all her might.

Fighting back tears, she turned in his arm and faced him, her hand going to his cheek. Without hesitation, he did the same, his thumb brushing her cheek and his eyes locking with hers; in them she saw the same pain, fear, and loss she felt herself, the same need...the need for his sister's closeness, her presence, to know that she was there for him, that no matter how alone in this big, dead world they were, they would always have each other. "I love you, Lincoln," she said with ernest severity.

His thumb caressed her skin, ghosting fondly over her freckles. "I love you too," he said.

They gazed longingly into each other's souls, giving themselves wholly to the other, then she leaned into him; his lips met hers half way, and their tongues flicked tentatively, testing the waters, then the kiss deepened, their bodies pressing flush against one another and their hands threading through the other's hair. She explored every crease and crevice of his mouth, tasted his lips and his saliva, flopped her tongue clumsily against his tongue, her passion rising until it burst against her chest. Lincoln laid her gently on her back and shifted onto her, his hands cupping her cheeks and the kiss never breaking. She clutched his shirt desperately and wrapped her legs around his waist as if to never let him go; his heart pounded against hers, and the kiss of his fingertips as they crept under her shirt and to her quaking breast made her gasp into his mouth.

Fire consumed her body and her hips rocked mindlessly against his growing bulge, her breath catching at the sensation of it prodding her through their clothes. Lincoln reached down to unbutton her jeans, and she fumbled with both hands at his belt buckle. When he got them undone, she arched her back, and he slid them down, his lips kissing her cheek, her jawline, the side of her neck, each touch sending jagged tendrils of pleasure into her loins. She threw her head back and hummed, her nails raking his back and her hips wiggling; when the jeans were around her knees, she yanked one leg out, then pushed them down with her heel. Lincoln's fingers skipped down her flanks and hooked into the waistband of her panties, dragging them along her thighs. His eyes met hers, and aching love and affection overwhelmed her; she grabbed his face, brought his lips to hers, and swirled her tongue around his.

Somehow they both lost their underwear, and his tip jabbed between her sticky folds, seeking ingress to her body. She spread her legs wide, and he found her opening, a sacred place she had shared with no one before. He pulled away from her lips and stared down into her eyes as he slid forward; her lips wrapped around his head, then it penetrated her, sinking in and spreading her walls apart. Stinging pain filled her pelvis and she winced.

"Are you okay?" he panted dazedly.

She nodded quickly. "Umhm." It hurt, but at the same time it felt so good, so right and natural - she needed him deeper, filling her, their bodies one, as close in flesh and spirit as two people could be. She dug her heels into the floor and held onto his shirt; he thrusted and sheathed himself in her boiling core, taking her virginity and poking the entrance to her womb. She threw her head back and jerked her hips against his, taking him even deeper. Their cried out in unison, then began to move in time, her up, him down. Her crcled his hand around her wrist, pinning it to the floor, then grazed her open palm and weaved their fingers together; she wrapped her legs around his hips, her ankles crossing in the small of his back.

In that moment, she felt full, complete, unalone - nothing else in the world mattered except for her brother...nothing existed outside of the love they were making, the intimacy they were sharing, the life they were celebrating. Her climax gathered quickly in her depths and her body shook as it approached, like the earth before a volcanic eruption. Lincoln's eyes narrowed and he bowed his head. "I'm cumming," he grated.

"Give it to me," she panted. She needed his essence inside of her, the deepest part of him in the deepest part of her, the blood pact concluding their ritual of love and devotion. He gritted his teeth and moaned...then suddenly grew against her insides. Her orgasm hit, and her muscles clamped around him, her walls squeezing and stroking his tightening shaft.

Liquid heat shot into her, and her mind rolled away, her hips pumping and a long, breathy sigh falling from her lips. Lincoln thrusted again and released more: She could feel it pooling in her center like lead, so hot it burned, and that feeling was the most beautiful she had ever known.

When the storm passed, Lincoln rolled off and took her in his arms once more, his lips touching her bare shoulder. _I just had sex with my brother,_ she thought. She didn't know whether to be elated or horrified.

The second time was slower, less urgent; she straddled him and took him deep into her body, loving him as totally as one person can love another. She kissed him as she rocked against him, her hand on his face and his on her hips, then her breasts as her speed increased, building toward the end. When it came, she rested her forehead against his, their noses and lips touching and their breaths mingling. She stared into his narrowing eyes as he filled her, then closed her lids and came unraveled, her nerve endings crackling and her body tingling with a pleasure so intense it might as well have been pain.

After, they held each other close, panting, trembling, their hearts pounding and their eyes tangled as firmly as their bodies. This time she knew what to feel. "I love you, Lincoln," she mumbled tiredly.

"I love you too, Lynn," he replied.

"Please don't leave me." A tight band of anxiety squeezed her chest at the prospect, and shameful tears welled at the corners of her eyes. "I need you."

He smiled faintly and kissed the tip of her nose. "I won't," he said. "I promise."

Safe and reassured in her brother's arms, wrapped in warm, fuzzy peace like a woolen blanket on a cold night, Lynn allowed herself to sleep, and for the first time in over two months, she did not dream.

Lincoln, on the other hand, laid away for a long time, stroking her hair, kissing her forehead, and staring darkly into the shadows.


	9. Return of the Living Dead

**Guest: I think there are three after this one. I don't really know, I haven't divided the text up yet.**

 **D4rK Sid3: Good, the world needs more quality Lynncoln ;)**

* * *

 **Lyrics to** _ **Layla**_ **by Derek and the Dominos (1970)**

Lynn came slowly and groggily awake in a spill of morning light, sleep clearing from her mind like fog and sensation returning to her body the way it does to a limb after it grows numb. She yawned, shifted to her side, and drew her knees to her chest. In that twilight borderland between consciousness and unconsciousness, she was warm and happy, and everything was right in the world. The past three months had never happened, the dead did not leave their graves, her parents and sisters never died; it was a bright Sunday morning and she was looking forward to a long day of playing football in the backyard with her favorite guy.

Inevitably, cold reality began to creep in, and the vision dissipated, splotches of gray appearing on the sepia toned fabric of space and time. The dead _did_ start to walk, her family _did_ die (all because of her), and it _wasn't_ an easy Sunday morning. In fact, she didn't know _what_ day it was anymore, and hadn't since Columbus. The world was gone, and with it everything she had ever known. Football, basketball, soccer, morning jogs, all of her favorite TV shows and bands, her family, her friends, meatball subs - all now in the ash bin of history and never coming back.

One thing remained, however, one gold and glorious bright spot in the gloom, a precious stone among charred, radiation blasted rocks.

Lincoln.

Her lips turned up in a sleepy smile when she remembered the love they made the night before, the way their bodies, hearts, and souls melded into one being, one flesh, one sigh. She lifted her lids, expecting to see Lincoln's face, eyes closed and lips parted, but instead she saw nothing, and her heart jogged in her chest. She reached out and touched the spot where he should have been as if to confirm to herself that he was indeed gone, and when she felt only blanket, her stomach dropped. She pushed herself to a sitting position and jerked a fearful glance around the church: Empty pews, an American flag standing by the entrance to the vestibule, and a giant plaque on the wall bearing a Bible verse: _I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die - John 11:25-26._

He was nowhere.

Sitting there pooled in blankets, wringing them in her hands, Lynn began to hyperventilate, feeling suddenly small and alone. He said he wouldn't leave her but he did, and now she had nothing, no one, a hell of her own making, and like the quote, she would never die, never escape.

The front doors opened, and when Lincoln stepped in, relief flooded through her and tears of joy came to her eyes.

Shutting the door behind him, he came over and smiled. "Morning," he said.

"Morning," she said, a giddy smile in her voice. He stood awkwardly over her for a moment, as though undecided, then bent and pecked her lips. Ummm. That wasn't good enough. She slipped her fingers into his hair and kissed him back, her tongue stroking his. He tensed a little, then dropped to one knee and kissed her back.

When she pulled back, he grinned at her and she giggled girlishly. "You kind of scared me," she confessed. She didn't want him to think she was weak, especially after her episode the previous day, but she couldn't stop herself. He was her only, and she found herself wanting to share everything with him - her thoughts, her fears, her secrets. Everyone needs a confidante - confession is good for the soul, they say.

He pinched her chin with his thumb and forefinger and kissed her again, chastely this time. "I'm sorry. I woke up early and after laying there for an hour, I decided to see if I could find keys to that van out front."

She smiled and kissed him, sucking his bottom lip into her mouth. His taste was addictive, the intimacy sublime. She grazed her fingertips across his cheek and looked into his eyes - it didn't matter if they were the last two people on earth or not, when she stared those limpid orbs, she didn't feel alone. "Did you?" she asked, inhaling his sweet breath.

"No," he said, "but I found a '74 Chevy Impala in the back. The keys were in the ignition and it runs like a dream."

His smug little smile made her grin. "'74 Impala, huh? I didn't know you knew so much about cars." She kissed his lips again, tracing them with her tongue and shivering when he caressed it with his.

"I had no clue what it was," he admitted, "there was an owner's manual."

She grinned. "Fronting like you knew." He started to reply, but she grabbed the front of his shirt in both hands and pulled him on top of her, bracing her socked heels against his butt and kissing him passionately.

Their third time was faster than the rest; Lynn wrapped her arms around his neck and held on as he pumped roughly into her, each rake of his crowned head against her rippling walls kicking sparks into her stomach, where they gathered into a hot ball of passion that swelled bigger and brighter until it exploded; his seed shot into her, and their cries of mutual nirvana rebounded through the church halls. Chist watched from his perch, sadness in His eyes.

Lincoln swept her into his arms, and Lynn snuggled contently against him; his essence dripped down the insides of her thighs in burning rivulets, and she pressed her legs closed to trap his warmth inside. For a long time, neither spoke, the afterglow of their sex heavy and tranquil upon them. Then, Lincoln propped himself up on one elbow and she turned to look into his eyes. "We need to get back to the Bronco," he said.

A twinge pinched Lynn's chest. "I-I don't know if that's a good idea. It's probably still surrounded."

"I don't know," Lincoln said thoughtfully. "We lead them toward the woods, so most of them probably spread out. There might be a few still hanging around…"

A few was too many.

Because all it took was one.

And she would lose him.

"No," she said.

Lincoln blinked in surprise. "Lynn…"

"We can't," she said, and tears came to her eyes again. She took a sharp breath through her teeth and tried to stave them off, she _hated_ feeling this weak, but they spilled down her cheeks anyway. "I can't lose you, Lincoln."

A frown crossed his lips, and he cupped her cheek in his hand. "You're not going to lose me. Everything we have is in that Bronco. Guns, food, medical supplies, ammo, the maps -"

"We can replace that stuff," she said, "I can't replace you."

He drew a deep breath. "I know, but it would be safer to get to the Bronco than to run around collecting all that stuff over again. Every time we stop, we're in danger; every time we go into a grocery store, we're in danger. We need food, fuel, and ammunition _now_. That car has a quarter tank of gas. We won't get very far before we'll have to stop. We need the Bronco, and I have a plan to get it. If it's surrounded."

Gazing into his eyes, Lynn carefully weighed and considered his words. He was right, running around and gathering everything they needed would be put them at increased risk. The keys were still in the Bronco's ignition. All she would have to do is get in and start it. That was easier said than done when there are fifty ghouls all vying for the honor of dining on your flesh, but she was confident she could do it. "What is it?" she sighed.

Fifteen minutes later, Lincoln pulled the Impala to the steps and Lynn descended. The day was already hot and the landscape surrounding the church a sickly shade of brown. The Impala's tires kicked up dust that hung heavy in the dry air like nuclear fallout, and the August sun felt like acid on Lynn's bare arms. When she woke, she wore only her socks and a white tank top, now she was dressed in black jeans and her combat boots, the tank top clinging snugly to her bare breasts. Resting the Springfield against her shoulder like a girl coming home with her trusty fishing rod, she went to the driver door, waited for Lincoln to scoot over, then slid in behind the wheel; the engine purred like a big cat, and faint vibrations trembled through the frame. She laid the rifle across the back seat, next to Lincoln's, and glanced at him. He flashed a reassuring smile and she returned it, even though her stomach was a bubbling pit of nerves and her heart clinched with fear. The operation ahead was dangerous, even if it was better than the alternative, and the thought of something going wrong and Lincoln being hurt made her want to cry.

She'd lost so much, and if she lost Lincoln, that was it. She would have nothing, and no reason to live; she'd shove the Desert Eagle into her mouth and blow her brains out.

Fighting back the urge to tremble, she threw the car into drive and followed a gravel drive through a dense stand of forest. The land dipped down toward the highway, and she paused. "Right," Lincoln said. She spun the wheel and turned onto the blacktop - it went straight for a quarter mile before bending around around a hill. On the other side, ghouls stumbled aimlessly, heads hung and bodies swaying back and forth. Lynn didn't trust hitting them with a car as small as the Chevy, so she weaved through them; they turned and gave chase as it passed. Lincoln twisted around in his seat and watched them. Lynn glanced anxiously in the rearview mirror - every one of those dozen pitiful creatures held the power in their maws to rip the last thing she had away from her, to turn her precious Lincoln into one of them, to…

"Watch out."

Lynn whipped her eyes back to the road: Ahead, a Dodge stood in the middle of the road. They were fifty feet back still, but Lynn's heart skipped a beat anyway. She swung around it and started when Lincoln laid his hand on her thigh. "You alright?" he asked. "You're kind of jumpy."

She started to lie, to put a false front of toughness, but she realized that she didn't want to lie to him. "I'm scared shitless, Linc," she said, her eyes pointed firmly at the road now and not at him. He squeezed and she closed her palm over the back of his hand. "I'm scared of losing you."

"I know," he said at length, his eyes filled with sorrow, "and I'm scared of losing you too. We can do this, though. We _have_ to do this."

In the distance, the road forked, the right down to a clear and sunny patch of farmland and the left up into dark woodland like a bad omen.

She was not surprised when Lincoln said, "Go left."

Faces stared at them from the undergrowth, flashes of white, gray, and bloated black. Lynn swallowed hard and tried not to look at them, but she did, stealing glances of torn skin, gaping wounds, empty eye sockets squirming with worms and maggots, jagged teeth snapping and gnashing impotantly as rotting hands clawed fruitlessly at thick walls of brush. One got free and staggered after them, its arms raised and its features lifting in all-too-human excitement.

After a mile, the road filtered out onto a main highway bordered by hilly pasture land bisected by wire fences and dotted with farms. Thin, wispy clouds hazed the dirty blue sky like smoke, and a the silvery roof of a distant grain silo glinted in the sun.

"Left."

Lynn turned and followed the road for two miles before they began encountering ghouls, a few at first, then more, their numbers growing until they were like buffalo on the plains. Lynn's heart started to race and her stomach twisted into knots. "There's too many," she said, a kneading edge in her voice.

Ignoring her, Lincoln reached into the back, grabbed the M-16, and rolled down the window. "Keep steady," he said. Zombies stumbled toward them, moaning and hissing in hungry anticipation. Lincoln climbed halfway through the window, parked his butt on the doorframe, and laid the rifle across the hood. Lynn tightened her grip on the wheel and toed the gas, creeping along. He fired, and a zombie fell to the ground, its head destroyed. _BLAM!_ Another went down, then another. She chewed her bottom lip and spotted the Bronco ahead, sitting at the side of the road and facing them; zombies shambled heedlessly around it, perking up at the sound of the gunfire and lumbering toward them. Lincoln fired again and again, waiting to get a clear shot at each one's head. They were in the road now, as thick as a forest d hands and teeth. She threw a nervous glance at him, and he pulled back into the car. "Alright," he said with a nod. "Go."

She stepped on the gas and pulled to the right, leaving the road and swinging wide around the dead, the Impala's tires biting into the grass and kicking up puffs of dirt. Past the seething mob, she jerked the wheel to the left, the car jostling roughly when it crossed back onto the pavement. Ahead, it made a sharp bend around a rocky hillside overgrown with dense underbrush. When they rounded it, Lynn punched the brakes and the car came to a sudden halt.

This was it.

She turned to him, and her stomach wrang like a wet dish rag. He leaned over and kissed her; she hesitated, as though this were the final step of consent and nothing could be done - the world and time itself would stop - without it, then she kissed him back, her tongue stroking his in warm affection. "I love you," she said.

He brushed his hand across her cheek and smiled. "I love you too. If there's trouble, keep going and come back around." He grazed the pad of his thumb over her lips, then he was gone, slamming the door behind him.

Never in her entire life had she been as terrified as she was in that moment, but she shoved her fear down and slammed a lid on it; he needed her to be strong and to play her part, and she was not going to let him down the way she'd let everyone else down. Hitting the gas, she pulled forward, then backed up and made a three point turn. Lincoln waited at the side of the road, his Beretta in his hand, and as she passed, he blew her a kiss; she smiled weakly, caught it, and blew one back.

 _God please don't take him away from me. I'll do anything just don't let my brother die._

She steeled her nerves - it wasn't God who would let him die, it was _her,_ and she was not going to do that.

Around the bend, ghouls shambling down the highway, the vanguard twenty feet ahead, so close...too close.

The plan was simple: She'd lead them away so that Lincoln could fetch the Bronco. When he was safely inside, they'd meet up down the road. Of course a lot of things look simple on paper, but become very complicated when you try to implement them. Lynn's main concern was the Impala: She'd have to run zombies over sooner or later, and she wasn't sure it could handle such abuse without taking major damage.

It was too late to worry now, though.

Drawing a deep breath, she slammed on the gas and the car surged forward, the engine's low growl becoming a mighty roar. The dead kept coming, mindless in their infernal hunger. She whipped the wheel to the left and went around, clipping one and pushing it back into the crowd. Another leapt in front, and the Impala's big front bumper took out its legs; it doubled over the hood and struggled to push itself up. Lynn's nose crinkled at the sight of its misshapen face, its skin puffy and black and drooping from its frame like tar. One eye socket was empty, and the other festered with flopping, wiggling earthworms. It reached out, its rotting fingertips leaving a greasy smudge across the windshield. She pressed harder on the gas, and it lost its balance and rolled off.

She was ten feet ahead of the zombies now and passing the Bronco; some came at her from the right, streaming around the Bronco and for some reason reminding her of battle troops responding to an alarm bell.

Well...in this case a dinner bell.

She eased up on the gas so she wouldn't pull too far ahead, and shot a worried glance at the rearview mirror: The dead were packed so tightly that she couldn't see around them, an impenetrable wall of dirt-caked burial suits, decaying flesh, and skeletal frames. Were they all following her or should she go slower? She didn't want Lincoln to have too many to deal with, though realistically he'd have a couple.

The knot in her stomach tightened. She hoped he was okay.

A half mile back, Lincoln crouched next to the guardrail and peeked around the bend: A mass of zombies shuffled after the Impala, their moans filling the air and sending a shiver down his spine. It had been three months since the dead started to walk, and in those ninety days, he still hadn't gotten used to them. Kind of hard to grow accustomed to something so unnatural - a dead body getting up and moving...shudder. Some things just aren't meant to be, and when we come face to face with them, our minds either blank or we adapt _just enough_. Lincoln was one of the latter, and Luan had been one of the former.

Heavy grief crashed down upon him at the thought of his sister, and his mind went back to the last time he'd seen her, walking toward the woods to use the bathroom, as carefree as one can possibly be in the apocalypse. He remembered turning away and going into the woods himself, and that was that; such a simple, casual parting, not _goodbye_ but _see ya in five minutes._ He longed to reach out and touch the specter in his mind, to at least give her a hug and kiss and tell her he loved her. _I can't stop what's about to happen, but I just want you to know how much you mean to me, Luan. I'm so sorry._

A single tear formed in the corner of his eye, but he brushed it away with his finger, wincing as salt met broken skin. He could dwell and kick himself in the ass later, right now Lynn needed that Bronco and he was going to fucking go get it for her.

Getting to his feet, the Beretta clutched in his hands and pointing at the ground, he darted out from behind the corner and started up the road at a crouch. Most of the dead were flocking past the Bronco now, and he paused to try and look around them, but in vain. God, he hoped nothing went wrong. It would be _far_ too easy for those things to flip the Impala and pin her inside. What would he do then? He was one boy with a Beretta, a single clip, and an M-16 with a quarter magazine. If they turned the car over…

He didn't want to think about that, because if he did, he'd go to pieces. Lynn was his everything, the love they shared last night and the not-as-new-as-he-liked-to-think feelings stirring in his chest aside, and he was not going to let her down. He was all she had, and that meant he had to be _everything_ for her...everything but a pussy who wimps out and gets himself killed. Do you know what that would do to her? He didn't, not entirely, but he could guess, and he didn't like what he saw, so he wasn't going to let that happen.

Moving quickly, he came upon the first of the stragglers and hesitated. He could easily duck around it and keep on going, but after what happened to Luan, and to all of his other sisters, he kind of wanted to blast its fucking brains out. He almost did, but the noise might draw the others, so instead he spun on one heel, drew his foot back, and lashed out, snapping its leg and sending in to the pavement in a heap. He started to pass, but it grabbed his ankle and tried to drag its mouth to his flesh. Sneering, he yanked away. "Fuck offa me." He kicked it in the face so hard the toe of his boot sank into its overripe cranium; cemetery sludge oozed forth and gushed onto the pavement.

He jerked his foot back and glanced up as another ghoul staggered at him. This one he grabbed by the labels of its dusty coat and shoved; it fell back and thrashed like a dying bug. Lincoln left it there, hustling toward the Bronco, which sat a hundred feet ahead, the area around it clear. The ghouls followed behind Lynn, a writhing phalanx twenty feet across; they blocked the highway, some picked along the grassy flanks, and others still slunk through the forest, tripping and falling over rocks, logs, and their own mangled feet. He was almost to the Bronco's back end when one sprang from his right and crashed into him like an undead freight train, knocking him hard to the blacktop - the air burst from his lungs in a hot rush and the Beretta flew from his hand, skitting across the road. The creature straddled his back and threaded its fingers through his hair, its mewls of anticipation a tomb-like mantra. His heart throbed painfully and fear, like cold water, spurted through his veins. Acting on pure instinct, he drove his elbow back and caught the thing in the stomach. It held fast and tugged his hair, bringing tears to his eyes. A few ghouls at the back of the pack heard the struggle and turned, began to come like flies to a carcass.

Oh, shit; oh, shit; oh, shit. His eyes went from the advancing dead to the gun, five feet away. He reached out, his fingers clawing against the blacktop, but it was just beyond his grasp, mockingly close yet tauntingly far away. The zombie on his back pulled itself close, its stale breath breaking against the back of his neck and raising goosebumps up and down his arms. The others waddled closer, feet scraping like a harbinger of doom. Gritting his teeth, he shot his elbow back again and rocked from side to side, true panic beginning to grip his chest. The zombie's lips touched his neck at the same time a vision of Lynn's face flickered across his mind, radiant like sun, her eyes big, brown and shimmering and her lips in that cocky, shit-eating grin he'd com to love. In a flash, he saw her sitting in the dark and sobbing into her hands - she had no one now; she was totally, utterly, and completely alone.

All of the rage, terror, love, hatred, joy, and despair in his body rushed to his center, and with a primal scream, he threw his head back, crashing it into the zombie's nose and upsetting its balance just enough for him to snatch the Beretta. Rolling to one side, he bucked it off and drew himself to a sitting position, the gun coming up and swinging around, his finger tightening on the trigger...then freezing.

Luan, her throat a gaping, ruined wound and her head lolling limply to one side, struggled to her knees. Dried blood crusted the front of her shirt, and her eyes stared sightlessly, murky white with death. She was naked from the waist down, her privates veiled behind dangling entrails.

Lincoln's heart dropped into his stomach and his grip on the gun loosened, his vision blurring. A memory came to him - them singing that stupid song from Spongebob, getting on Lynn's nerves and loving every second of it because that's what siblings do. With a sharp pang, he realized that that was the last time he ever really spoke to her, the last time he would banter with her, the last time he would ever see her infectious smile.

 _You and Stinkoln both love my jokes,_ she said, her voice echoing through the chambers of hs skull, and deep down he always did. They were bad, but the fact that she told them, that she was always happy and upbeat, trying to make people laugh and spread humor...that was one of the things he loved most about her. She was viberant, so alive...and her life ended in a stand of bushes on the banks of some no name river in Vir-fucking-ginia, alone and afraid as she was ripped apart and eaten alive.

The thing before him, once his sister but no longer, gurgled in the back of her throat and reached out to grab him.

He shot her in the head; the report rolling like thunder, blood misting from the back; her body toppling over, landing on her side, and flopping to her stomach.

 _Scrape-scrape._

Coming awake like a man from a trance, Lincoln jumped to his feet and turned to the others, three of them. Seething now because they killed Luan - made her suffer and cry and bleed - he stalked forward, jammed the barrel of the gun against the closest one's forehead, and pulled the trigger, shattering its skull. He whipped around and shot the second, then the third. Others turned from the crowd and began to come; he aimed and fired at them too, missing their heads because he was shaking and starting to cry. Like dominos falling, more and more broke from the Lynn-chase and started toward him.

Under the pain and loathing, he realized he needed to get to the Bronco _now_ before they swarmed it. He started to run, but stopped and turned to Luan's crumpled form. He glanced at the zombies, decided he had just enough time, and went to her, kneeling and dragging her into his arms, wrapping them around her from behind and squeezing. In life, her hugs were warm and soft, but now they were cold and hard. "I love you," he said around a lump of emotion in his throat. He glanced again at the dead, then let her go and got to his feet, his eyes going to the pale, fleshy globes of her butt.

He couldn't leave her like that.

Shrugging out of his vest, he tossed it aside, ripped off his shirt, and covered her with it.

With one final look, he started for the Bronco, his feet pounding on the pavement and his arms pumping. Two zombies were too close for his liking, less than ten feet from the front end, and as he ran, he aimed, jerked the trigger, and took one in the forehead, spinning it around. He shot the other in the face, driving it back onto its ass.

When he reached the door, he ripped it open and jumped in. The army, four ranks deep, maybe six, was closing in. He tossed the Beretta onto the passenger seat, turned the key, and threw it into drive. Punching the gas, he spun the wheel and angled across the highway, skirting the first row, coming so close they were able to slap the side.

The tires left the pavement and bit into the grass. He saw the Impala ahead, creeping past a driveway, dozens of zombies still behind it. He straightened the wheel and pressed the pedal to the floor, surging forward and blasting past the ghouls. The Impala's back lights blinked as Lynn tapped the brakes; Lincoln laid on the horn, and she took off.

Passing the final ghouls, Lincoln turned back onto the road and watched them dwindle in the rearview mirror. Adrenaline coursed through him and a grin cleaved across his face. "That's right, you sons of bitches. Party's over." He tittered and slapped the wheel. "Dinner is _canceled_." Despite just shooting his sister in the head and leaving her in the middle of the road, he felt good. His plan went off with a hitch, he got the Bronco back, and he'd live to kiss Lynn at least one more time. All in all not a bad morning. You know what? This calls for music. Isn't there a tape in the player? He leaned over, jabbed the play button with his finger, and sat up as fuzzy guitar blared from the speakers.

 _What'll you do when you get lonely_

 _And nobody's waiting by your side?_

 _You've been running and hiding much too long._

 _You know it's just your foolish pride_

The premonition of Lynn sitting alone in the dark and sobbing came back to him like a brisk slap in the face, and his mood darkened. She was alone in the world, and he wasn't around to hold her in his arms, or dry her tears, or even to share a companionable silence with her.

 _Like a fool, I fell in love with you_

 _Turned my whole world upside down_

They still had today, though, and tomorrow too, probably. How many more after that? He couldn't say, didn't _want_ to say. He'd learned to not look toward the future, because it probably wouldn't be there - as long as you have this moment, that's all that matters. Everything else can wait for another day.

 _Let's make the best of the situation_

 _Before I finally go insane_

 _Please don't say I'll never find a way_

 _And tell me all my love's in vain_

He spotted the Impala idling in a gravel lot bordering a general store, and pulled in, the Bronco's tires crunching rocks. He parked next to it, and Lynn got out, looked nervously around, before slipping into the passenger seat. "You okay?" she asked, a worried note in her voice.

"I'm fine," he said as he leaned forward and kissed her lips; she tilted her head to the side and kissed him back, her hands going to his shoulders and stroking the slope of his neck. He cupped her hips and pulled her body flush with his, the taste of her mouth intoxicating and the feeling of her warm, living flesh good and right under his touch. She pulled back and rested her forehead against his, her brown eyes pooled with apprehension. "I love you," he said.

"I love you too, Lincoln," she replied and caressed his cheek with her fingertips. Her voice lowered to a solemn whisper. "I love you so much." She threw herself at him and wrapped her arms fiercely around his neck. He nearly fell back against the door, but saved himself, and slipped his arms around her waist. "Please don't leave me."

Lincoln took a deep, leaden breath. "I won't," he lied.


	10. Among the Dead

Lynn figured the number of ghouls would increase once they got closer to the densely populated seaboard, but even she was shocked by the sheer number of dead they spotted as they skirted the outlying suburbs of Winchester. They filled the fields like rotten wheat, shambled densely through the narrow streets of Nian, and dotted the farms and pastures falling away from Route 654. She recalled the vast flocks of ghouls near Detroit and Toledo, and how as they fled south from the Rite-Aid where Lori was bitten, they were nearly overwhelmed. Throbbing fear radiated from the center of her heart as she navigated the Bronco toward the eastern West Virginia panhandle, and every few minutes she glanced at Lincoln as if to make sure he was okay. He caught her every time, smiling and squeezing her hand, which had been in his since they left the Impala.

For most of its length, 654 flows past pastures, hills, and hamlets composed of ten or less buildings. Tumbledown barns, general stores, rustic old houses, and still ponds lined the way. It stood largely empty, but there were wrecks here and there; at one point a tanker lay across the road like a fallen tree, and Lynn had to inch around it on the shoulder. At another, a pile of twisted, fire scorched metal marked the place where a pile-up happened during the final days.

Before entering West Virginia, 654 turned into 739 and narrowed, the yellow dividing lines disappearing. Split rail fences overhung by leafy trees lined both sides, forming a tunnel through which golden summer sunshine filtered like divine light in a Renaissance painting. No sign marked the boundary between states - Lynn didn't even realize they'd crossed back into West Virginia until she saw a state police car parked at he side of the road.

"Keep straight?" Lynn asked when they came to a fork.

"Yeah," Lincoln said. He lifted his free hand, clad in a black glove _to help my grip_ and scratched his head. "Keep on it until Harpers Ferry. Couple miles up we're gonna cross over I-81 so there might be wrecks."

"Like your face?" Lynn teased.

"Like the way you kiss," Lincoln retorted.

She pursed her lips and crushed his hand, making him wince. Hey, she might be kind of...well...clingy and and stuff, but she still -

Lincoln rolled her knuckles and pain streaked up her arm. "Ow!" She ripped away from his grasp and slapped his leg. "Jerk!"

He laughed and drew away, so she slapped him again to show him that there's no escaping the wrath of Lynn Loud. He laughed and laid his hand on the butt of the Beretta. "When your lunch group roasting you for your Pokemon lunch box but don't know you have a Glock 34 inside."

Lynn's brow pinched. "What?"

"It's a meme," he said, "that fat kid from Drake and Josh smiling because he's about to go all Pumped Up Kicks on his middle school."

For a moment Lynn simply looked at her brother, then shook her head. "You're such a dork," she said fondly.

The trees flanking the road fell away, and in the distance giant billboards advertising fast food joints, fly by night attorneys, and high speed internet service rose loftily over the interstate, which passed under a bridge that carried 739 to the other side. "That's another way of saying you're about to get blasted."

Lynn laughed. "Oooooh, is it, now?"

"Yep," Lincoln said. "I'd only kneecap you, though. Because I love you."

Those three words brought a goofy smile to Lynn's face, and a giggle escaped her throat, passing through her lips before she could have stopped it...if she wanted. How can three words make her feel so warm and fuzzy and good? How could his face and his voice make every awful thing that had happened over the past three months seem not as terrible? Twenty-four hours ago, she watched her sister being eaten alive by the living dead, and while it tormented her, right now she didn't feel crushing, chest-tightening, suicidal grief the way she rightly should...especially since it was her fault. She felt good, and feeling good brought a flush of guilt to her face. She didn't deserve to be happy, she deserved to be where Luan was, and Luan here, but she _was_ happy.

And so scared of losing that feeling that she trembled as if with cold. She didn't want to think of that, though, because if she did, she would lose her focus, and when she lost her focus, people she loved died. She'd be damned if she was going to let Lincoln die.

She'd be _damned._

From the I-81 corridor, 739 turns into Route 26 and winds through the town of Bunker Hill - wasn't there a famous battle here? Two miles out, a half-finished apartment block appeared on the right, its bare plywood outer walls partially covered in Tyvek paper with 84 all over it. South of Tarico Heights, the highway angles sharply south, passing a used car lot, a Denny's, and a BP station before crossing a wide creek. Zombies shuffled aimlessly across the blacktop, turning toward the sound of the engine and grasping at thin air. "How much farther?" she asked as she swung around an F-250 with a trailer attached to the back, a boat resting upon it in proud repose.

Lincoln grabbed the map from the dashboard and unfolded it. "Uh...about twenty miles."

Judging by the position of the sun, it was around noon. If they made good time, they could be in Washington by tomorrow. She didn't know if the pinching in her chest was excitement or dread - there might be help, or there might be death. "What about from there?"

"We stay on this road all the way down the Potomac," he said. "It's about ninety miles give or take."

Lynn's stomach lurched. Her mind turned back to the house on the mountain they sheltered in...what, three days ago? God, it seemed like a lifetime had passed since then. She could see herself and Lincoln in a place like that, an out of the way farmhouse on a rolling patch of land far, far from the dead, just the two of them, safe, happy, and in love, eeking by and having little, but having each other. If Winchester was any indication, Washington would be crawling with zombies, and the chances of them even getting to safety, if it existed, were slim, the risk too great.

She glanced at him and frowned in thought; he stared out the window with a dour expression, his brows heavy and his lips tight. He was scared too, though she knew he wouldn't admit it. She squeezed his hand and brushed her thumb across his knuckles. He turned and forced a wan smile. "Hi," she said.

He grinned. "Hi. Should we introduce ourselves? Start all over?"

She shook her head. "No, I'm happy with this."

"So am I," he said.

She took her hand back to steer around a head-on collision angled across the center line. "And I'm scared of it being taken away from me." Tears came to her eyes, and she turned away with a frustrated sigh. She was turning into a fucking emotional wreck and she didn't like it.

A dark shadow crossed Lincoln's face. "Me too," he said grimly, and squeezed her hand. "But we have today and that's all that matters."

Lynn sighed and started to speak, but hesitated, not knowing if she should say what she wanted. It wasn't based on any logic, but instead on a feeling. What she and Lincoln had now was...she wasn't sure. Would she feel the same way if things went back to normal? If the world came back and she was no longer a nervous wreck? She couldn't say, but in that moment she _did_ love him, as a brother and as more. "I don't _want_ just today," she finally said, "I...I want the rest of our lives."

Sighing, Lincoln nodded. "So do I. No matter how long that is."

Long, Lynn hoped, very long, so long that they could have a normal life together, that they could share years and years of love and teasing and grow old together, so long that he could be by her side, holding her hand, through everything, so long that maybe, just maybe, even though they were brother and sister, they could have a family. Life is a cold, bitter place, especially now, and Lynn didn't want to face it alone, _couldn't_ face it alone; she needed Lincoln like a lamp in the dark. If she had her way, they would both live forever, and even that wouldn't be enough time to express the feelings locked in her breast. She could make love to him, hold his hand, bear his children - and it would never fully show him how much she loved him.

The chances of that happening if they took a detour and found a little house in the country would be much higher than if they went to Washington. Lisa studied the infection, she said that the rate of decomposition was _in keeping with the laws of biological degradation, therefore within a year, all of those things will be immobile and decayed beyond the point of presenting a danger._ Just one year. Less, even; ten months, maybe nine. And in the winter, they'd freeze solid. She and Lincoln could get through a few months easy, and after that, they wouldn't have to worry about zombies anymore. They could live, love, and make lots of babies, and maybe one day they could find other survivors and rebuild.

She favored him with a longing stare, wanting to tell him what she was thinking, but for some reason she couldn't explain, her resolve crumbled and she turned back to the road. In the passenger seat, he shifted and winced in pain. "You alright?" she asked worriedly.

"Yeah, I'm fine," he said, "it's my knee. I think I jostled something when L -" he cut himself off like flipping a switch, and his eyes clouded. He glanced away and sucked his bottom lip in as if to keep from crying.

Lynn frowned. "What?"

"Nothing," he said, a thickness to his voice that normally wasn't there, "I just fell and hurt my knee." He lifted his hand to wipe his eyes and hissed through clenched teeth. "And my elbow."

"You want some aspirin?" she asked/

He shook his head. "Nah, I'm fine. Just a little stiff, that's all."

Fifteen minutes later, after skirting a dense stand of forest, the highway flattened and ran through more farmland, either side lined with waist high stone walls for several miles. Thick gray clouds filled the sky, and faint, sporadic drops of rain splattered the windshield. She reached over and turned on the wipers, stealing a glance at Lincoln, who stared thoughtfully out the window. His eyes shifted to the side, catching her. "I wonder how many farms there are," he said.

"Out there?" she asked, nodding toward the eastern horizon. A vast field stretched toward woodland, and a green tractor sat in the middle, its door standing open as though it were abandoned in a hurry. A crow sat perched on the hood, its head turning in dark curiosity as they passed.

Lincoln shook his head. "No, I mean...in the whole country."

The highway dipped down before crossing a set of railroad tracks and entering Charles Town: Old houses pushed close to the shoulder to the road, and a mile in they were surrounded by neighborhood: Homes, fenced yards, hilly streets, cracked sidewalks overhung with wavering branches. The rain began to intensify, hissing in the road and on the Bronco's hood.

"I dunno," Lynn said after a moment of thought. Enough that they could claim at least one for their own, she thought but didn't say. She grinned. "We can skip Washington and go count them all."

He chuckled humorlessly, "I'm good, thanks."

The street bent and crossed into the downtown section: Quaint brick storefronts flanked the sidewalks - wrought iron lamp posts evenly spaced loomed overhead. Cars sat here and there, some of them slanted, others smashed together, glass shattered and metal twisted. A few ghouls wandered the wreckage, turning and giving slow, futile chase as the Bronco passed, its tires splashing through puddles. Lincoln watched, then leaned over and turned on the CB, the low hiss of static filling the cab. Lynn lifted a brow. "I thought listening to the CB was pointless."

"Eh," he said with a shrug. "We're closer to Washington," he said. "We might pick something up."

A colonial church dominated a corner lot on the left, its steeple rising proudly into the driving rain. The wipers beat a dull, steady tempo against the glass and as Lynn watched, a ghoul stumbled out into the street and slipped on the wet pavement, landing hard on its ass. Lynn snickered.

Then ran over its legs.

She and Lincoln both looked back; it lay against the curb rolling from side to side like a turtle, its lower limbs smashed and smeared across the asphalt. She knew it was simply trying to get up and chase them, but she could almost believe it was writhing in agony.

"Five points," Lincoln said.

Lynn blew a raspberry. "Five? That's it?"

He nodded. "You ruined his legs but you didn't kill him."

"I wasn't _trying_ to kill him," she said defensively.

The buildings fell away and the road crossed under an interstate through a tunnel, the rain momentarily halting until they were on the other side. "Good," Lincoln said, "because if you were, you did a suck job of it. Freaking hack."

Lynn was shocked into laughter. "Hack?"

"Yeah. Hack."

"I will _stop_ this car and kick your ass." She shot him a half-lidded glance. I won't really kick your ass, Linc-O. I'll do something...else. Lincoln smirked. _I know you won't kick my ass,_ it said, _because you're in loooooooove with me, ooo-ooo_. Well...he wasn't wrong. She reached out and crept her fingers across the top of his leg, brushing the seam along the inside thigh of his jeans. His breath caught and his eyes darted to hers, a naughty, boyish light dancing through them.

Something in that gaze made her heartbeat pick up; she bit her bottom lip and skipped her fingers up to the warm bulge of his crotch. His breathing changed, became ragged, and he licked his lips. "You better...keep your eyes on the road," he stammered.

She cupped him in her hand and rubbed slowly, tracing the outline of his package, her middle finger finding his head and stroking, bringing it to life and making it twitch under her touch. His body responding to her was the hottest thing ever, and her center twinged in anticipation; she felt burning lubrication filling her the slit between her folds and squeezed her legs together, which only made the pressure worse. "I wanna keep them on you, though," she said.

Lincoln licked his lips and regarded her with longing eyes. "We'll crash."

"No we won't," she said, then grinned cockily. "No one on the road but us."

He glanced at the road. "And that Mac truck."

Lynn whipped her head around, half expecting to see a truck passing them in the opposite lane like the past two months hadn't happened. Instead, she spotted an eighteen wheeler angled across the road, its trailer flush against the guardrail and its cab pointed at the southbound lane. She grudgingly took her hand off of Lincoln's crotch and wrapped it around the steering wheel - after his warmth, it felt cold, empty, and alone. She whined in the back of her throat and stuck her bottom lip out as she drove into the median to avoid the truck. Lincoln chuckled. "We can stop in a few. I wanna stretch my legs, anyway."

"I wanna stretch something _else_ ," she said suggestively; it came before she could stop it, and she blushed because it sounded really dumb and cheesy. She stole a glance at Lincoln, and he grinned.

"I'm gonna be the one stretching something."

Her crotch tingled. _Yes, please!_

Out loud: "Pfft, okay, little guy."

A sign flashed by on their left, white lettering on a brown background. HISTORIC BOLIVAR HARPERS FERRY NEXT LEFT. The highway kept straight toward low, rugged mountains in the distance shrouded with fog.

"That's not what you said last night," he smirked. "Either time. Or this morning." He narrowed his eyes and threw his head back. "Harder, daddy Lincoln, faster."

Lynn laughed. "I didn't say that."

"Right. You were too busy cumming your brains out."

Actually, she was too busy relishing the closeness of his body against hers, the way his heart gently pounded next to her breast, the way he stared lovingly into her eyes and kissed her neck and chin and...okay, _and_ cumming her brains out. Lynn didn't think she was sheltered growing up, but she'd never seen a real penis before last night, so she didn't know what was _big_ and _small,_ but Lincoln's got the job done and that was good enough for her. Plus it was attached to him, and that made all the difference, didn't it? Sex, or so she had heard, is as much is the heart and mind as it is the genitals. If you love the person you're with, the sex will be great no matter what size they are. Right?

"I was faking," she said.

"No, you weren't."

A line of vehicles sat at an intersection, rain drenching their frames. A traffic light swung back and forth in a gust of wind and power lines jiggled. Lynn spun the wheel and passed them. "I sure was," she said in a tone that made clear she was lying.

Lincoln turned to look at her, then shrugged one shoulder. "Alright, fine. If I'm that trash at sex, you can do it yourself."

The lanes merged and the road narrowed as it dipped down on its approach to Harper's Ferry, hills dotted by trees and undergrowth sloping up from either shoulder.

"But, Lincy…" she drew.

"Nope," Lincoln said and stared out his window. "The candy shop is _closed_."

The rain began to let up some. On the right, the hill dropped into a narrow valley filled with trees. Beyond, a forested mountain stood against the hazy sky. The road curved gradually and crossed the Shenandoah River, then hugged it tightly. Mountains surrounded them. "When do we get into town?" she asked.

"We don't," he said, "we passed it."

"Oh." There was a hint of disappointment in her voice. Earlier, Lincoln told her all about Harpers Ferry, how some guy named John Brown tried to take it over and free the slaves, and how it was basically a peninsula formed by the confluence of the Shenandoah River and the Potomac. She listened raptly (mainly because she liked the comforting rise and fall of his voice), and by the time he was done, she was kind of amped up to see it.

She also wanted to stop for sex. "What's the next town?" she asked as she navigated around a stalled Escalade.

"Sandy Hook, Maryland," Lincoln said instantly. The Potomac separated West Virginia and Maryland for a good chunk of its length.

Lynn blinked. "Where the school shooting happened?"

"No," Lincoln said, "that was Connecticut."

In all her life, no one had ever accused Lynn of being a brainiac; she was a sports girl and everyone assumed that meant she was dumb or something, and the thing that irritated her most about that was that maybe they were right. Lincoln's intelligence, however, was a real turn on. Not sexually, but as a trait. She found it attractive, and always had in a way, even before she started to feel this way. Back in Royal Woods, she'd listen to him speak and shake her head in amazement. He wasn't as smart as Lisa (was anybody?), but he _was_ smart, and even if she called him a geek and teased him about it, she'd always liked that about him. She'd always thought he was kind of cute too.

She wondered if she'd been in love with him for longer than she knew - if maybe it was a subconscious thing before coming to the surface. And if it was...would they have 'happened' if the world didn't end? Would those feelings ever have fully emerged? She didn't know, but she figured they probably wouldn't have, which she supposed was the silver lining to this whole sad mess.

Presently, the highway crossed over the Potomac on a narrow bridge with green railings. Rocks jutted from the rippling surface and downstream a tiny tree crammed island faced the shore. On the other side, a sign read: WELCOME TO MARYLAND.

"New state," Lincoln said.

A mile further on, a green sign with a white arrow pointed to Sandy Hook. Lynn pulled onto an off ramp and turned into the parking lot of a Waffle House at its base. She scanned the area for zombies, but didn't see any. Perfect. She cut the engine and turned to Lincoln, a salacious grin crossing her lips. "Wanna have sex?" she asked.

Lincoln ticked his head from side to side in thought. "Eh." The twinkle in his eye betrayed his true thoughts on the matter.

She _could_ have flirted with him a little more, really built it up, but she wanted it _now_ : His body _and_ the deep connection in sex. She climbed around the console and threw one leg over his lap, shifting onto him and planing her knees on either side of his. He put his hands on her hips and she threaded hers through his snowy hair; she looked lovingly down into his eyes and wiggled her hips against the growing bulge in his pants. This...right here...touching him and staring at him, feeling his warmth and life, was the most arousing thing imaginable. She leaned in and pressed their foreheads together; his breath broke against her lips, and its sweet taste filled her mouth. Se brushed her fingers across his cheek and breathed deeply of his scent.

"I love you, Lincoln," she said.

"I love you too, Lynn," he said.

Their lips met, and their tongues moved slowly over one another in a tender waltz that increased in tempo as their passion rose; Lynn traced her fingers down the sides of his face, and he slipped his hands under her shirt and pressed them to her rippling stomach, their heat flowing into her and sending pangs of desire through her slickening core. He cupped her breasts and rubbed her nipples firmly with his thumbs; she gasped and sucked a deep intake of breath, then kissed him again, her head tilting to one side and her tongue jamming as far into his mouth as it could go. The seam of his jeans swelled and strained against her groin; she mindlessly rubbed herself against it, the feeling of it scraping across her aching folds making her light-headed. She reached down and fumbled with the button of his jeans as he ran his hands over her breasts and stomach and along her sides, sending shivers down her spine.

His dick popped free like a jack in the box, and she grinned against his lips, her hand stroking slowly up and down his shaft. "Hi," she panted.

"Hi," he replied.

She lifted up and yanked her jeans down, pulling them over her knees and settling on him, his head slipping between he lips and poking just above her enterance; his hands closed around her breasts and squeezed, and her eyelids fluttered.

Splaying her hands on his shoulders, she shifted until his tip pressed against her opening, then settled, taking him in slowly, his crowned head spreading her and raking her walls; she bit her bottom lip and threw her head back; she could feel every bump and ridge sliding into her, tight against her insides, filling her. When he bottomed out, she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him deeply; his hands pushed up the hem of her shirt and rubbed the soft skin at the small of her back. His breath was heavy and his hips twitched forward, jamming it against her cervix with the sweetest pain she had ever felt.

Hugging him tightly, her cheek flush with his, she lifted her hips, trembling at the sensation of him scraping her, digging into her, claiming her, then jerked down, a tiny _Uhhh_ bursting from her lips. He circled his arms around her and held tight as she established a steady rhythm, thrusting up and down, her speed increasing as embers ignited into a roaring inferno in her depths. She kissed the side of his neck, his shoulder, his earlobe, losing herself to passion, her body moving of its own accord and his moving with it. "I love you," she breathed and sucked his earlobe between her teeth.

"I love you too," he said.

Her orgasm formed in the center of her stomach, the burst like a ball of dazzling light, setting every nerve ending in her body on fire and filling her skull with blinding brilliance. Lincoln's dick swelled, then his seed shot into her, making her body freeze and shake, silvery, molten lead burning and sizzling, scorching everything as it spilled along the passage of her femininity, filled her womb, and overflowed, dripping down his shaft and pooling in his lap. He moaned her name, and that, knowing she was making him cum and shake, made her own climax even more powerful.

Afterward, drawing shuddery breaths and quaking as aftershocks rolled through her, Lynn hugged her brother tight and breathed his smell, her eyes closed and a slow, happy smile spreading across her lips. He ran his nails up and down her back, and she shivered in delight.

"You're shrinking," she mumbled as his penis began to deflate.

"I know," he replied and kissed her throat, his lips finding her pulse. "Because you turn me off."

She snickered and pulled back, taking his face in her hands. "All that cum says different." She shifted and grimaced at the sensation of it spilling from between her legs. "Speaking of which, we need to clean up."

Five minutes later, as clean as they could get with a single towel (which wasn't much, Lynn's thighs and pussy were still _very_ sticky), they got out and into the day. The rain had stopped entirely, and the air was humid, molding around them like a wet blanket. Lynn looked around for zombies, saw none, and went around the Bronco's front end to be with Lincoln, who shifted from one foot to the other and winced. "You okay?" she asked.

He nodded. "Yeah. That spill I took and being cooped up in the car aren't doing me any favors." He flexed his arms and bared his teeth with a hiss. His movements were slow, stiff. Lynn frowned and started to say something, but he cut her off. "You want something to eat? I'm starved."

Lynn shrugged. "Yeah, I could eat."

Together they went around to the back of the Bronco, and Lincoln opened the hatch. Lynn looked around; the afternoon stood empty and rain-slicked, no dead in sight.

Lincoln reached in and pulled out two MREs, then climbed up onto the bumper and sat between a box and a sleeping back, his feet dangling over the pavement. He hissed in pain as he did so. "You sure you're okay?" Lynn asked worriedly and sat next to him.

"I'm fine," he said, and ripped open one of the packages, then handed it to Lynn. She glanced at the label printed across the front: POT ROAST JUST LIKE MOM USED TO MAKE. I highly doubt _that_.

"What happened back there, anyway?" she asked, remembering his hesitancy before. He was acting like...her heart dropped. "You didn't get bit, did you?"

He shook his head. "No, it was…" he trailed off and stared into the distance; thin white mist slipped though the trees on a distant hillside. Lynn's entire body throbbed with expectant fear. "What?"

Sighing, he looked at his lap. "Luan. It was Luan. She...she tackled me and...I shot her." The words came hard, and as Lynn listened, her stomach flooded with icy sludge. "She was fresh so she was, you know, stronger, and she...she really slammed me." His face darkened with sadness and he drew a heavy breath, then glanced at the package in his hands. "No biggie." He ripped it open and looked at her with a weak smile.

From there, the mood was soured, and they ate in silence; Lynn's appetite was gone, but she forced herself to eat anyway. As she did, she thought of Luan, dead in the middle of the road like a dog, and of Lisa, buried alone behind a roadside rib joint, and of the others, walking the earth after death, hungering for blood, dumb, pitiful, dragging.

With a jolt, a vision came to her: Lincoln and her side by side, dead and pale, shuffling through the streets of Washington, seekers after safety who found only death. She swallowed hard and looked at her brother, her lover, the most precious thing in the world, really the _only_ thing in the world.

"You know," she said, "I was thinking...maybe we _shouldn't_ go to Washington."

Lincoln looked at her, brows knitting. "What do you mean?" he asked incredulously.

Raindrops fell from the leaden sky, pelting Lynn's head and shoulders and making ripples in puddles on the pavement. She could feel his gaze hot on her skin. She sighed and looked up at him. "I mean, it's...it's too dangerous. Look how many of those things were in Winchester. Washington is five times as big and they're gonna be _everywhere_. Even if there's a bunker or something, we don't know where it is. We're gonna have to fumble around a whole city with zombies on our asses. The risk of you getting hurt -" she realized what she said and amended herself - "or me getting hurt is too much."

Lincoln did a double take. "W-W-Well what are we supposed to do? Live among the dead?"

She nodded and he blinked. "Yeah," she said, then, like a woman pleading her case: "We can find a house….something out of the way, in the country. W-We can live there and wait for them to die off. It won't take long. Lisa said a year at most. We can _do_ that, Linc. We can hide out, and then when it's over, we can...make a life or something."

For a long, suspenseful moment, Lincoln stared at her, his forehead pinched and his lips pursed as though he'd just tasted something he didn't like. When he shook his head, Lynn's heart staggered. "No," he said. "We'll never make it out here." His voice was flat, lacking conviction.

"What do you mean?" she asked. "We totally could. We don't need to worry about food, there's plenty of canned stuff out there; we don't have to worry about...about anything. We can find a place with an attic, board up the doors and windows, and live in there...in the attic." Her words were coming faster as she tried desperately to sway him and saw that it wasn't working.

"We need to be with other people," he said, "what if one of us gets sick? Or hurt? We'll be fucked."

That knocked her off balance, but she recovered quickly. "Pioneers did it. We can too. It's just for a little while. I mean, we can wait until next spring _then_ go to Washington. It'll be safer then."

Lincoln seemed to consider, and for a brief moment she thought he was going to assent, but then her hopes dashed when he shook his head again. "No."

"Why?" she demanded. She wasn't the most articulate or thoughtful person in the world, but she thought her reasoning made sense - common sense. How could he think going to Washington was better? Sure, there were dangers in living on their own for the next eight months but they'd been doing it, on the road, for two, and the risk involved in sauntering into a city full of zombies was far, far greater than the risk of living in an attic for a comparative few weeks.

The rain came faster now, hissing like static. "Because going to Washington is best." His voice was uncharacteristically tight. He tossed the pouch of food away and stood, wincing at the pain in his knees. "And that's that." He crossed in front of her and disappeared around the passenger side. Lynn watched him go with shock, then her eyes narrowed and anger, fueled by fear - fear for him - knotted in her chest. She got up, slammed the hatch, and went to the driver side door, slipping in as Lincoln buckled his seatbelt.

"You're being dumb," she said and buckled her own belt, jamming the clasp roughly into the slot. "We're much better off laying low instead of going into fucking zombie central. We've been surviving on our own for two months, on the road, we can make it in a farmhouse."

Lincoln's lips tightened and he turned away, the white light of the overcast afternoon bathing his stony face. "Have we?" he asked, his words like a brisk slap in the face. He turned to look at her, and his eyes were hard. "Everyone we love has died out here. Every _one_ has died. We've been on the road for two months, Lynn, two months, and we haven't seen a single person. Not _one_. Because they're dead. If we stay out here, we will die too."

Was it her imagination, or was there an accusatory edge in his voice? _We're not surviving out here because of you, Lynn. You killed everyone, and if we stay out here, you'll kill me too._ Her lungs crushed as if under a closing fist, and thin, burning tears welled in her eyes. Her first reaction was to lash out, to hurt him the same way he hurt her, but she stopped herself. He meant so much to her, so fucking much, and she couldn't do it, couldn't hurt him or even raise her voice at him. "You're wrong," she said with a calm she did not feel and took a deep breath to dispel the dark pressure in her chest. She was worried for him and him alone, she had to remind herself of that fact. "We can do it. It won't be the easiest thing in the world, but we can, Linc, and you know it."

"No we won't," he said and turned pointedly away. "We need to get to Washington. And soon."

Hot rage bubbled up in Lynn's chest and her hands tightened on the wheel. She gritted her teeth and inhaled through flaring nostrils. She wasn't one to back down when she knew she was right, but she _really_ didn't want to fight with Lincoln. "Fine," she said tightly. She threw the stick into drive and slammed on the gas; the Bronco rocketed forward and slid on the wet pavement. Seething, damning him with everything she had, she spun the wheel and got back onto the highway. She wouldn't let him see, but within five miles, tears stood in her eyes.

She'd never been so scared and full of dread in her life as she was when she saw the green sign on the right.

WASHINGTON, D.C.: 65 MILES.


	11. Living Nightmare

_**If never I met you**_

 _ **I'd never have seen you cry**_

 _ **If not for our first hello**_

 _ **We'd never have to say goodbye**_

 _ **If never I held you**_

 _ **My feelings would never show**_

 _ **It's time I start walkin'**_

 _ **But there's so much you'll never know**_

 **Kiss (Hard Luck Woman, 1976)**

" _Lincoln!"_

 _Her voice echoed, resounding through the endless night and coming back to her ears different, distorted, with a mocking hilt that it didn't leave with._

" _Lincoln!" Louder this time, more desperate, pleading and frightened._

 _She was standing in the middle of a road surrounded by trees. It was night and the gibbous moon hung low in the sky, but she could see as though it were day. She felt no mortal fear - the dead no longer walked here, only her. She took a step forward and looked around, her heart knocking against her ribs. Where was he? Why didn't he answer her? "Lincoln, please!" She was proud, but now she was begging, tears spilling down her cheeks. Wind she did not feel moved though the treetops, rustling them: If she listened close enough, she knew, she would hear whispering - all the world was haunted now, the forest lousy with ghosts of a died off world. Her mother was out there, her father, and all of her sisters, watching through tangled brush, and if she squinted, she would see them, faces white and glowing, eyes black, ragged holes; no expression, no love, no hate, simply staring...staring…_

 _She started to cry, and her knees went out from under her, spilling her to the rough pavement in a heap. "Lincoln," she moaned, "I need you. Please don't leave me." She drew her knees to her chest and hugged herself; she imagined it was him as she rocked back and forth, surrounded now by the presence of spirits she could feel but not see. Lisa, Luna, Lucy, Leni, Lori, and, right in front of her, Luan._ You didn't watch for me, _Luan's voice said from the center of her head. She sounded angry...and hurt._ I watched for you but you didn't watch for me.

" _I'm sorry," Lynn sobbed, her forehead against her knees. "I'm so sorry, Luan."_

You left me to die. _Her voice quivered with emotion._ It hurt, Lynn...what they did to me hurt so bad.

 _Luan started to cry, and Lynn wept harder. She tried to speak, to beg her sister's forgiveness, but her words came out in a strangled rush._

You could have come back for us, _Luna said, her tone dripping with disdain._ You could have circled around and tried, but you didn't...you left us because you're chickenshit. You're a pussy and the moment it comes to you or us, it's going to be us every time.

" _No," Lynn croaked, "no I was thinking of the others...we would have died."_

I must point out that in fact we all _did_ die, _Lisa said, and Lynn could imagine her pushing her glasses up her nose._ You killed every single one of us, Lynn, with your negligence. Now you're alone.

 _An unseen force lifted Lynn's head, and suddenly she was walking through the second floor hall of the house in Royal Woods. It was dark and dank, like a cave, and garbage littered the carpet. Terror clawed at her chest and she tried to pull away, but she was drawn inexorably to a door at the end of a corridor. Crooked pictures stared down at her from the wall, the faces they depicted strange and grotesque, the countenance of demons watching hungrily as she laid her hand on the knob. Something terrible lurked on the other side, she knew, but was powerless to stop herself as she pushed it open._

 _Crrrreeeeeaaaak._

 _The hall light fell across a bed and a humped form. It whipped up and twisted around, making Lynn jump, a terrible white faced apparition with glowing yellow eyes and matted red hair spilling over its deformed shoulders. It looked nothing like Lola, but that's who it was. "Lynnnnn," she drew, her voice hollow and soulless. She crawled to the foot of the bed like a crab, blood and pus dropping from her mouth. Lynn turned to run, but Lana blocked the way, half of her face red and seeping and a trowel in her hand. Lynn took a step backward, head shaking from side to side and tears filling her eyes, then tripped over something and went down. Lana lifted the trowel and brought it down in a deadly arc._

" _Lincoln!"_

 _She was back on the road, walking and jerking her head from side to side, the forest teeming with spirits that whispered lowly as she passed. "Lincoln!" She rounded a corner and saw him up ahead, his back to her. Joy filled her heart, and she started to run to him, but her feet were heavy and she could hardly move. "Lincoln!" she cried. "Please don't leave me! Please!"_

 _He started to walk, and panic clutched her chest. "Wait!"_

 _The road turned again, and a sign appeared on the right, white lettering on a green background. WASHINGTON 1MI. Lincoln kept steady ahead of her, his pace never quickening, never slowing. She tried to move faster, but her legs refused to obey her commands. "I'm sorry I yelled at you!" she heard herself saying. "I'll go to Washington!"_

 _As if by magic, the city spread out before her: She saw the Lincoln Memorial, the White House, the Pentagon, the Washington Monument, and the reflecting pool, bodies floating face down. Fires raged unchecked, and the sound of screams, gunshots, and sirens filled the air. Someone spoke next to her, but she did not fear: It was just Tom Parcel from Channel 3. Guess he worked in D.C. now:_

"At this hour, we repeat, these are the facts as we know them. There is an epidemic of mass murder being committed by a virtual army of unidentified assassins. The murders are taking place in villages and cities, in rural homes and suburbs with no apparent pattern nor reason for the slayings. It seems to be a sudden general explosion of mass homicide. We have some descriptions of the assassins. Eyewitnesses say they are ordinary-looking people. Some say they appear to be in a kind of trance. Others describe them as being misshapen monsters. At this point, there's no really authentic way for us to say who or what to look for and guard yourself against. Reaction of law enforcement officials is one of complete bewilderment at this hour. Police and sheriff's deputies and emergency ambulances are literally deluged with calls for help. The scene can be best described as mayhem."

 _She was suddenly in the living room, standing behind the couch and watching detached as she and her siblings gathered around the television set. Mom and Dad hurried through the house in a fluster, Mom gathering supplies to take into the attic and Dad and Lincoln boarding up the doors and window. She remembered the terror as she watched the world end; riots, looting, armies of the dead swarming through city streets. CNN played endless video until troops stormed the newsroom and forced them to stop at gunpoint: The screen switched to a brass band playing Nearer, My God, to Thee, then went black. There was a talk show too, she recalled - a black man and a white man shouting at each other. The white man said: "Every dead body that is not exterminated gets up and kills! The people it kills get up and kill!"_

 _Lincoln screamed, and she jumped, her head whipping around. The front door was broken and splintered; a ghoul had him by the hand, dragging him toward a sliver of wood. Lynn's heart dropped and she tried to go to him, but something grabbed her ponytail and yanked. She turned, fists balled, only to find herself, an evil grin on her face. "Let go!" she cried. "I have to help Lincoln."_

 _Lynn 2 shook her head slowly. "Let him die," she said._

 _He howled in pain, the shard sinking slowly into his eye, blood gushing, his arms thrashing helplessly. All Lynn could do was break down in tears._

 _Sometime later, she was lying in a sleeping bag, candles surrounding her, their flickering glow painting the walls a feeble orange. Her arm was bent behind her head and she stared into the darkness. She didn't know how, but Lincoln was dead, and it was her fault. She got him killed just like she got them all killed. She glanced at the Desert Eagle next to her, but didn't reach for it. She didn't deserve to die, she deserved to live alone in the hell she'd made for herself._

 _Something kicked in her depths, and she laid her hand on her stomach. At least she still had the baby._

 _She caught a flash of movement from the corner of her eye, and her heart seized. She turned just as Lincoln stepped from the shadows, the firelight washing across his pale, dead features. His eyes were wide, staring, and milky white. Lynn's breath caught and a shock of fright went through her._

" _I came back for you, Lynn," he said flatly, with no emotion...no anger, no rage, no love, no sadness. He came forward, and for a moment she was paralyzed in fear. The baby kicked again, and she came alive, picking the gun up and aiming it; it was heavy, cumbersome, and the trigger wouldn't budge. Lincoln's feet scraped on the floor as he approached, and the baby kicked again, as if in terror. Please, Mommy, don't let me die too._

 _Gritting her teeth and summoning all her strength, she jerked the trigger, and the gun jumped in her hand. A hole appeared in the middle of Lincoln's forehead…_

 _...but he kept coming._

 _She tried to get up, to run for her and her child's life, but she was frozen, held down by unseen hands. Lincoln stepped over her and knelt between her legs. She couldn't scream, couldn't move, could only watch as he pulled her pants and underwear down and tossed them aside. Their gazes met, and she pled with her eyes. Please don't...please don't hurt our baby._

 _As if on their own violation, her knees parted, and Lincoln shoved his hands into her. She let out a silent howl of misery and threw her head back, her hips arching as she tried to wiggle away but couldn't. Something moved inside of her, and with an explosion of red agony, he wrenched the baby out of her, its thin, sickly cries rebounding off unseen walls. She bit her quivering bottom lip and squeezed her eyes closed against a rush of tears, but could still see: Lincoln brought the shrieking fetus to his lips, and when he bit down on its throat…_

...Lynn sat bolt upright in bed, a scream locked in her throat and her heart bursting against her breast. Threatening darkness surrounded her, and for a moment she was certain that she was in hell, locked in the deepest, blackest chamber, doomed to watch her baby be ripped from her womb and eaten alive over and over again for all eternity. Then a stray moonbeam fell through the window and laid across the bed.

A dream.

Just a dream.

She took a deep breath and raked a hand through her chestnut hair. Next to her, Lincoln lay flat on his back, one hand resting on his chest and the other outstretched: They fell asleep cuddling, and she must have been using it as a pillow.

Rubbing her forehead with the heel of her palm, she listened to the night; a long, eerie wail sounded in the distance, and her blood ran cold. _Just dead people screaming,_ she assured herself. They made lots of weird noises beyond the common hisses and moans. Sometimes their perpetually working jaws accidentally produced words: _Mommy_ one said as it came at her, and she was so disturbed that she heard it in her sleep sometimes. _Unintentional vocalization,_ Lisa called it. That was surely it - that thing did _not_ call her Mommy.

A shiver dropped down her spine like a block of ice, and she resisted the urge to lean over and turn on the Coleman lantern sitting on the nightstand. She was too hot, and the air in the room too stagnant despite the open window. She grabbed the Desert Eagle and slipped out of bed, treading light on bare feet to make the least amount of noise possible. At the door, she paused and looked back at Lincoln, the moon casting his bare chest in cold, silvery light, then went down the hall to a door marked ROOF ACCESS. She eased it open just enough to allow passage, slid through, and went up a steep flight of stairs to another door that opened onto the roof itself, a wide, flat space enclosed by a waist-high parapet. Above, the moon stared down like an all seeing eye, its skeletal face wrapped in thin clouds reminiscent of dirty burial shrouds. A cool breeze plastered her sweaty bangs to her forehead, and being as quiet as she could, she went to the edge of the roof and leaned against the border. Below, the street stood empty, the only movement the skitting of trash across the pavement. The wail came again, further away this time, drifting through the desolate world like a doleful cry. Lynn's heartbeat sped up, and she swallowed thickly.

They were in the town of Potomac Mills, a tiny village on a wooded stretch of the Potomac River thirty-five miles west of Washington. From here, she could see the moon dappled surface, and beyond it, the black outline of Virginia. They stopped at just past six the previous afternoon after encountering an impassable pile-up on Route 190: A tanker truck jackknifed and a line of cars smashed into it, causing as massive explosion. The result was a twisted heap of scotched metal that completely blocked the road. Lincoln had an alternate route planned, because of course they did, but Lynn decided to call it a day while there was still light, against Lincoln's protests. _We can go another hour,_ he said. She didn't understand why he was so set on _making good time_ : Either way, they were going to be there by tomorrow.

Dread filled Lynn's stomach and she drew a deep, shivery breath. In just a few short hours, she and Lincoln would be in the city of the dead, a maze of streets, alleys, and passageways where you'd never see trouble until it jumped out and ate your face off. In just a few short hours, she might lose the one thing that mattered in the world.

She thought again of just turning around and taking them back into the countryside; let Lincoln be mad. It would be for his own good. That town...what was it called? The one where Lisa died. There was so much open space there, so many wooded ridges and mountains, so many rushing streams, deep, secret valleys and hollers that they could lose themselves forever.

Lincoln _had_ to know that, he was smart, he always planned. Why he fought her so hard was a mystery and a frustration, but he did, and she caved because she was in love with him, hook, line, and sinker, and the last thing she wanted, especially right now (when, admittedly, she was weak) was for him to be angry at her.

The more she thought about it, though, the less she cared. She might not be a planner like him, or a scientist like Lisa, but she wasn't stupid no matter _what_ people in Royal Woods might have thought. Washington was a death trap even if there _were_ people there. They needed to wait until next spring. Hell, they could even try this winter. Lisa explained that the dead would probably freeze solid, or at least freeze up enough to slow them down even more. How many months away was winter? She turned her eyes to the sky and counted. Four months until December - that seemed like a long time, but they'd already survived half of that on their own.

 _Have we?_

Lynn's stomach tightened at the memory of his words. No, not _all_ of survived, but... _they_ did, and they did it while travelling. If they settled down in a house on a hill, flanked on three sides by dense forest, say, and on one by a river, they could pass four months like nothing. Look at them now, sleeping in a second story apartment over a hardware store in the middle of a town. If they could pull this off for one night, why couldn't they pull off a farmhouse for ninety nights?

The wail came again, far in the distance, so far that it barely bothered her this time. She glanced up at the moon and pursed her lips. She didn't want to fight with him...but her mind was made up. Tomorrow they were turning around and going back to West Virginia whether he liked it or not. If he wanted to give her the silent treatment or yell at her or fight, well, fine, it was a small price to pay. She'd rather him alive and angry than dead.

Pushing away from the ledge, she went through the door, down the stairs, and into the hall, tiptoeing; every time the floor creaked under her bare feet, she winced and stopped to listen. Before coming upstairs for the night, they moved a riding lawnmower in front of the door and tacked sheets over the windows. Nothing could see in, but they could hear, and all it took was one tiny noise to draw them. Lisa hypothesized that they were somewhat hive-minded. If one heard something, say a gunshot, and started walking in a certain direction, others would join, despite not having heard themselves. _It's akin to a snowball rolling down a hill, getting bigger and bigger as it goes._ Eventually, you had a giant herd of living dead following a sound none of them remembered. If a crow so much as cawed close to their hideout, or if a screw gave way and a sign clattered to the street, they'd be overrun. The Bronco was parked against the back door, so close that all they had to do was open the door, open the driver side, and scurry in.

Still, she was nervous, and part of her wanted to go downstairs and have a look around, but instead she went into the room and crossed to the bed, the dresser, chair, and TV set vague shapes in the dark. Moonlight gleamed on the glass of a framed photo hanging from the wall, a little blonde boy about three, sitting in a chair and smiling at the camera. There was a crib in the other room and toys strewn across the floor - no evidence of him or his parents, though. They probably went to one of the many rescue stations that cropped up before things got really bad: Most of them were overrun in the early days and closed.

At the bed, she sat, laid the gun on the nightstand, and turned the lantern on the lowest setting; weak white light spread across the covers, barely reaching Lincoln's side. She swung her legs onto the bed and faced him: His brow was pinched and his lips moved silently, his gloved hand resting on his bare chest. He kept that damn thing on all day, and when she pointed it out, he shrugged. _I might need to aim in a hurry._ Weirdo. He even kept it on when they had sex earlier (their first time in a bed, she mused). Love filled her as she stared at him, and, smiling, she snuggled up next to him, her hand going to his stomach. His skin was hot to the touch, and Lynn frowned. They were alike in a lot of ways (though you might not know it) and one of those was body heat: They both threw off a _lot._

With a sharp intake of air, Lincoln opened his eyes; panic filled them, and for a moment he tried to sit up, but she held him in place. "Shhh," she soothed, "it was just a dream."

He jerked his gaze at her and swallowed, his eyes clearing. He raked his glove hand through his hair and took a deep, shaky breath. Lynn kissed his chest and laid her hand over his heart; it slammed wildly against her palm, and she kissed him again. "You're okay, Linc. You're safe. With me."

For a second he fought to catch his breath, then he swallowed with an audible click. "I-I know," he said, "I just…" he trailed off and shifted, a look of pain crossing his face.

"Do you want to talk about it?" she asked.

"No," he said and laid his hand on top of hers, "it's nothing."

His ashen skin and the haunted look in his eyes begged to differ. Lynn sighed deeply and rested her head against his chest, the comforting echo of his heartbeat filling her ear. He was strong and a survivor, but even strong survivors don't come through their ordeal without physical and mental wounds - he'd seen so much horror over the past three months, lost so much, just like her; and like her, he was scared and hurting.

She couldn't stop that, but she _could_ love him. It may not be much, but it was all she could give. Rubbing his chest slowly, she kissed his heated skin, the saltiness of his sweat tingling on her lips. He brushed his hand across her hair and traced his thumb along her brow, the rough fabric of the glove making her wince. He laid it on the back of hers and squeezed. "I love you," he said.

That always made her smile. "I love you too." He let go, rested his hand on his chest, and stared deeply into her eyes. She ran her hand over his flesh and brushed against the glove. She rolled her eyes. "Will you take this damn thing off?"

She snatched it, and Lincoln's eyes filled with panic. "No," he said and tried to pull back, "I -"

It came off…

...and Lynn froze, her blood turning to ice in her veins.

On the knuckle of his middle finger was an angry red cut, not very deep but festering with blood and yellow pus.

The pit of her stomach dropped like a trap door.

"Lynn, I..."

She'd seen that same wound more times than she wanted to count.

He was infected.

Hot, throbbing pain exploded in the center of her skull and her heart started to slam in panic. It was happening. She killed him just like she killed the rest...he was going to leave her _and it was all her fault_.

"No," she said, her voice small and broken on trembling lips. Tears filled her eyes and she looked up into Lincoln's face. No, that's not what it was...just a cut, a scratch, something, anything other than that. She saw the truth in his eyes, and the tears came faster, streaming down her cheeks in stinging rivers. "No," she repeated and shook her head. This couldn't be happening...she couldn't lose him too.

Lincoln frowned sadly and took a deep breath. "I…"

She lost her parents, her sisters, her friends, her life, the shows she liked, the sports she played, the music she listened to, her own fucking bed, her _home_...now she was going to lose him too, the boy she loved, the boy she wanted to spend the rest of her life with, the boy whose children SHE WANTED TO HAVE!

A hot ball of rage detonated in her chest, and anger flowed through her like bitter poison; her jaw clenched and her body shook. Lincoln reached for her, but she ripped away and jumped to her feet, panting and trembling, her nostrils flaring as she drew great breathes in. She looked around the room for something to smash, to break, to _kill_ , something to which she could direct all the blame.

But there was only herself.

Lincoln scooted across the bed and got to his knees, his hands up, palms out. "Lynn, take it easy…"

His eyes locked with hers. So soft, so brown. In them, she once saw her future...now she watched it die.

Just like he was going to.

Her anger drained away, and the world blurred as tears overwhelmed her. His face crumpled, and the look of pain she saw made her cry harder. She bowed her head and clamped her lower lip between her teeth, but there was no stopping it, no slowing it. A tide of grief swept her away and she sobbed hysterically, her shoulders shaking and her chest aching so bad she doubled over.

When Lincoln took her in his arms, she melted against him; her knees gave out, but he caught her. "Lynn," he said, a pleading note in his voice, "it's…" he trailed off, not knowing what to say.

The one good thing in this world, and like in her dream, it was being ripped away from her. Lincoln shushed her and ran his fingers through her hair and hugged her tightly. His scent filled her nose, soothing, warm, and that made her cry even harder.

She didn't realize she was trying to speak until she heard herself. "Y-You're gonna die," she moaned, her voice breaking.

His body tensed. It was true: She knew it and he knew it too. He couldn't deny it, or put up a false front, or point to the bright side because there _was_ none. Instead of speaking, he held her and stroked her hair as she wept against his shoulder. At some point, he led her to the bed, and they sat, her head against his chest and both of his arms around her shoulder; he placed delicate kisses across the plain of her forehead, and her tears slowly tapered off. She was empty, wrung out...dead, her eyes staring sightlessly and her mind frozen as surely as her limbs.

The world hadn't really ended for her until the moment she saw that wound on his knuckle, his warm, fragrant skin broken, his kissable body filled with infection. She knew that if he turned his back to her, she would see the first faint purple bruises...where his blood was beginning to pool. Her heart clutched and her stomach twisted. She couldn't stand it...if she saw it she'd start crying all over again.

She surprised herself by speaking. Her lips were numb, cold. "When?"

Lincoln threaded his fingers through her hair and ghosted his nails over her scalp. The sensation wasn't enough to penetrate the fog, though. "It doesn't matter," he said.

"When?" she asked, more firmly. She already knew, but she needed to hear it.

Sighing, he said, "Yesterday. Or the day before. When...when Luan died. I went after you and one of them came at me and I...I punched it in the face."

Her deceased heart thumped painfully. _I went after you._ She remembered the terror, the panic; on some level she knew Luan couldn't be saved, but she tried anyway...and she led Lincoln to his death.

She thought she was wrung out, but she wasn't: She started to cry again and Lincoln pressed her head to his chest. "I'm sorry," she breathed, "I'm so sorry, Linc."

"It's not your fault. I could have shoved him or-or punched him in the chest. I just...reacted and busted him in the mouth. I didn't realize his tooth caught me until later. That's why I wanted to get the Bronco so bad." He swallowed hard. "I-I knew I wouldn't be around to help you. And why I wanted to go to Washington before I got too sick."

Lynn squeezed her eyes but the tears still came. She curled her fingers against his chest and gave voice to her anguish. Lincoln brushed her hair from her face and kissed the top of her head. "I should be good for another day or two, so we can get you to Washington -"

"I'm not going to Washington," she said.

Lincoln tensed. "What?"

She drew a deep, shivery breath through her nose and let it out slowly. "I'm not going to Washington. I-I can't lose you." A strangled sob escaped her throat and she clung to him. "I can't...I can't."

"Lynn," he said, a stern note in his voice.

"No," she said firmly. She looked up at him; his eyes were wide with horror, but she ignored them. Her mind was made up. "If you die, I die."

He flinched as if struck. "Lynn, no, you -"

She silenced him by touching his cheek and brushing her thumb across his lips. Tears stood in her eyes and her face was drawn, lips tight and trembling. She looked far, far older than her sixteen years. "No," she said, "no."

Lincoln gazed into her eyes, swirling and dark with misery, wet with tears, and knew that she wouldn't be dissuaded. "Maybe there's a cure," he offered, his voice unconvincing to even his own ears. He didn't believe that. Lynn shook her head and he sighed. "There's a chance."

"There is no cure," she said. "Lisa said it was impossible."

She did. On the road, she studied the infection as best she could, and reached the conclusion that the plague worked by rapidly breaking down blood cells. She compared it to cancer, only it was much, much worse. _Within hours,_ she said, _the infected is beyond all possible help. Maybe if caught in the first fifteen to thirty minutes, but certainly not after that_.

"She could have been wrong," Lincoln said, "s-she didn't have the time or the facilities to really study it." His words were coming quicker now. He could feel tears threatening to overwhelm him but blinked them back. He opened his mouth to try and convince her, but the truth, unvarnished and total, came out instead. "I don't want you to die." The tears came then, and he looked away, not wanting her to see his weakness.

When she cupped his cheek in her hand, he looked up into her eyes.

"I'm already dead," she whispered.


	12. Forever

**Lyrics to** _ **See You on the Other Side**_ **by Ozzy Osbourne (1995)**

 _We can pretend._

Strong arms circled her from behind, and warm lips brushed the side of her neck. "Good morning," he said and kissed her, his hands lacing over her stomach.

Humming, she leaned her head back into the crook of his neck and melted against him; sick, feverish heat radiated off of him in waves. "Good morning," she said and turned her head to face him; his eyes were soft and brown, dancing with light and love, his lips turned up in a fleeting smile hinted with sadness. She ignored it and forced a smile of her own. "How'd you sleep?"

They stood in the sun washed kitchenette off the stairs, Lynn at the gas stove, dressed in a red and white jersey that reached halfway to her knees and socks pulled up her calves; Lincoln wore jeans and nothing else, his chest and feet bare.

A pot of corn beef hash cooked over an open flame, its scent seasoning the stagnant air. On the counter next to the range, two MRE pouches labeled BREAKFAST, HASHBROWN W/ BACON, PEPPERS, ONIONS lay at the ready next to a can of instant coffee she'd found in a pantry.

She'd been awake since just after dawn, sitting up in bed and watching Lincoln sleep, alternating between tears of grief and tears of rage - rage at God, rage at the dead, and rage at herself. When she could stand it no longer, she came in here, cracked yellow linoleum popping under her bare feet, and sat at the table, her hands folded at her eyes pointed at the window over the sink, resembling a shell-shocked woman sitting among the ruins of her bomb blasted everything.

 _We have now,_ he told her last night after they made love, _and that's good enough._ Tears leaked from her eyes and she wiped them away with the heel of her palms. _Let's just enjoy the time we have._

At first she ached so badly she could barely breathe. How could she enjoy the time they had when it was so short? Two days, three at the most. That wasn't long enough...it wasn't long enough at all.

But, she decided, she would make the most of it. _We can pretend._ Dazed, she got up and went off to make breakfast. _Like playing house. Just for a little while_.

"Good," he said presently and kissed her lips. She closed her eyes and kissed him back, her tongue darting out and swirling gently around his. She cupped the backs of his hands in her palms and gave herself over to the moment, existing not in the past or the future but in the present only. Turning in his arms, she took his face in her hands and deepened the kiss, lifting up on her tippy toes to better reach his mouth; he had a growth spurt on the road and was just taller than her now.

He put his hands on her hips and drew her body flush with his, his hands sliding down and pushing the hem of her shirt up over her thighs; she threw her arms around his neck, tilted her head, and sighed into his mouth when his fingertips grazed across her silky lips, her heart kicking into overdrive and her knees trembling.

Over the smell of his breath, she caught a whiff of burning. Shit. She pushed away and turned, grabbing the pot and slapping it onto one of the other burners; white smoke poured into the air. "Damn it," she she hissed. She snatched a wooden spoon from the drying rack and stirred the contents, Lincoln grabbing her hips and watching, his chin resting on her shoulder. "I burned breakfast."

 _You killed that too._

Suddenly she was crying, her hand pressed to her face and her head bowed. "Hey," Lincoln said softly and wrapped his arms around her; his embrace was warm, comforting, more and better than she deserved. She tried to pull away, to deny herself, but he held fast. "Lynn...it's fine, look, it's just a little at the bottom. Really, it's no big deal."

"Yes it is," she sobbed, "I wanted to make you a nice breakfast and i ruined it." _Just like I ruined everything else_ , she thought but was weeping too hard to add.

Lincoln hugged her to his chest and rocked her gently back and forth, his lips placing tender kisses along the side of her neck. "You didn't ruin it," he said patiently, and, as though he'd read her mind, "and you haven't ruined anything else."

Her blurry gaze fell on his hand, on the wound...the one he got coming after her. She fucked everything up...she wasn't going to fuck this up too. They were going to have a nice rest of their lives together, and she wasn't going to spoil it by being an emotional wreck. "I'm sorry," she said thickly, and rubbed her eyes. "I just…"

"Shhh," he said and kissed her shoulder. "I want some of that cornbeef. It looks really good."

"Yeah?" she asked hopefully.

"Yeah," he said, "just like you."

That made her giggle despite the tears still standing in her eyes. "You're a dork," she said fondly, her voice threatening to break.

"I know," Lincoln said, "I've made peace with that."

While he sat at the table with a cup of coffee, Lynn made two plates, taking great pains to ensure that his looked perfect. Done, she sat it before him, bent, and kissed his forehead, then sat across from him with her own food. The smell turned her stomach, but she forced herself to eat anyway, to keep up the illusion. She crossed her legs, propped her elbow on the table, and watched him, her lips creeping up into a smile. _We have right now...let's make the most of it._

Getting up, she went over to him, and he looked quizzically up, then grinned when she sat on his lap, one arm slipping around his shoulder. He hooked his around her waist, and she kissed him, then took the fork from his hand. She forked a piece of hash and held it to his lips; staring into her eyes, he flicked his tongue obscenely out and drew it into his mouth. She laughed. "You eat like a pedophile."

She held out another bite. "Come here, little girl," he said and wrapped his lips around the fork.

"Dweeb." She forked a piece of potato, held it to his mouth, then took it away at the last minute and ate it herself. His brows shot up, and she laughed again, spraying bits of food into his face; he winced and she covered her mouth. "Sorry."

He brushed his hand across his features and favored her with a faux stern expression that made Lynn's heart palpitate. He was so freaking cute. "I didn't mean to," she said and pinched his cheek.

"You just did it again!"

Whoops. She did. She swallowed. "Sorry."

* * *

Lynn pulled the Bronco around the building and onto the sidewalk, inching past a streetlamp and parking across the front door, blocking it. Lincoln stood guard, then went to the hatch and opened it, his brow crinkling with every step he took; his joints were killing him and she insisted he stay inside, but he wouldn't listen.

They had many things in common. One of them was stubbornness.

Killing the engine, she pulled the keys out of the ignition and got out, slamming the door behind her; the sound echoed through the empty town. At the hatch, Lincoln lifted a box of MREs, his jaw clenched, then he cried out and dropped it. "Fuck," he moaned, and the pain in his voice jammed into Lynn's heart like an icepick.

"You okay?" she worried, her hand going to his back; he was bent, hands splayed on the bumper and head bowed.

Slowly, he nodded. "I'm fine," he said, his voice strained. "My elbows just locked up."

Lynn rubbed a comforting circle between his shoulder blades and fought back the urge to cry.

Taking a deep breath, he stood up straight. "Let's get this stuff upstairs."

"I got it," Lynn said, "just stand watch, okay?"

He started to protest, but stopped himself and nodded. "Alright." Of the two of them, he was the least stubborn, and would admit his limit; that was something else she'd always admired about him.

If he was in charge, she thought, no one would have died.

Shoving that thought aside, she picked the box up from the sidewalk and carried it upstairs, then came back for their bags - all the worldly possessions that they were able to save before leaving Royal Woods so, so, so long ago. Throwing hers over one shoulder and Lincoln's over the other, she started to turn, but stopped when she spotted something between a box and a clear plastic tote. Brows furrowing, she leaned in and pulled it out, a black leather bag with gold handles. She opened it, and pill bottles greeted her.

Lisa.

She swallowed hard, closed it, and brought it with her, slamming the hatch; Lincoln stood at the mouth of the alleyway between the hardware store and the adjacent bank, his face ashen. "Ready?" he asked.

Lynn glanced at the storefront: It was a simple brick building with a plate glass window, POTOMAC HARDWARE stenciled across the pane in gold tinged red. This was it, she thought, home...or the closest she and Lincoln would ever come to having a home. Beyond this place, beyond him, there was nothing. If life was a plain of existence, this place was the final outpost.

"Yeah," she said, the finality of her own words striking her heart like a hammer, "that's everything."

Lincoln turned and started around back, and as Lynn followed, she threw the keys into a storm drain.

Inside, she sat their bags on the bed and unpacked them while Lincoln brought more lanterns up from downstairs. She pulled a shirt from hers, and froze when she saw a framed photo at the very bottom. She reached in, took it out, and held it in her hands Her and her siblings clustered on the front porch steps, all of them smiling, all of them alive. She darted her eyes from one face to another, remembering how they died, their last words, the sound of death rattling in their throats. When Lincoln put his hands on her hips from behind, she jumped. "What's that?" he asked, then saw, his body stiffening ever so slightly.

"I…" Lynn started, but broke off. She carried it over to the nightstand and sat it down. "There," she said, turning away from the staring eyes of her sisters. Even still, she could feel them boring into her back.

Lincoln took her in his arms and hugged her. She squeezed her eyes closed and staved off a fresh storm of tears. Why did he love her so much? Why was he so tender and gentle and sweet? She killed all of their sisters, she killed _him,_ yet here he was, whispering into her ear and stroking her hair. She didn't deserve him...but she had him and she thanked God. "I'm fine," she said, and looked up at him, her hand going to his face. For a moment, they gazed into each other's eyes, then they kissed, Lincoln's fingers slipping through her hair and Lynn's palms flat on his chest.

Carefully, he laid her back on the bed and Lynn spread her legs for him, shaking as his fingertips crept up the outside of her thigh. When he entered her, she wrapped her arms around his neck and held on tight, moving her body in slow, sweet rhythm with his. He grunted in pain, and she grazed her nails over his scalp. "Don't hurt yourself," she whispered, each thrust kicking showers of embers into her soul.

"I'm fine," he said and kissed her chin.

As their climax approached, she wrapped her legs around his hips and bit her heels into his butt, drawing him as close as she possibly could, her hands clutching the back of his shirt. When his warm, living essence flooded her, she arched her back to take it all and bit her bottom lip, her own orgasm hitting her like a train and tiny exclamations quavering from her lips. Lincoln buried his face into the crook of her neck and pumped his hips, filling her to the brim, his lips pressing to her throbbing pulse and a moan vibrating against her skin.

After, he held her in a bar of afternoon sunlight, his arm around her shoulder and her head resting on his chest. She felt empty without him in her, cold, and she kept her sticky thighs firmly closed to trap as much of his seed inside as she could. Drowsiness lay over her like a thick blanket, but she didn't want to sleep; if she was asleep, she would miss time with Lincoln, and time wasn't something they had a whole lot of.

When Lincoln spoke, she flinched at the sudden shattering of tranquility. "Do you remember that time you got a black eye playing softball?" he asked. "And you thought you were terrible?"

Laying her hand over his beating heart, Lynn nodded. "Yeah."

She was eleven then, and just started playing. During practice one day, she missed a swing and the ball clocked her in the right eye. She was already down because she was the worst one on the team, and that hit sent her over the edge: She ran home in tears and vowed to never play that stupid sport ever again. She was sitting on the porch step and crying into her hands when Lincoln found her. He dragged the story from her, and now, five years later, she smiled at the memory of his bewildered expression. _But you're the best ball player_ ever, he said with sincere wonderment.

"I came really close to kissing you that day," he said now.

Lynn looked up at him, her forehead pinching. "What?"

He smiled sleepily. "Yeah. You were so sad and hurt. I wanted to make you better." He ran his fingers through her hair, sending a shiver of delight down her spine. "I love you," he said, "and I want you to know how happy you make me. I-I want to make _you_ that happy."

"You do," she said quickly. "You make me happier than anything in the world.

"Good," he said. "I love you."

"I love you too."

Together, they slept.

Evening. Lynn lit a lantern and sat it on the counter; cold white light flickered across the walls and sent shadows scurrying into the corners. She lit another and sat it on the dining room table, where Lincoln sat with his head in his hands. "How're you feeling?" she asked and touched his shoulder.

"I hurt," he admitted, and those two words tore through Lynn's chest like a hollow-tipped bullet. She drew up a chair and sat next to him, squeezing his shoulder gently. He looked up at her, and the light shone on the sweat sheening his forehead; his eyes were pooled with misery and his lips quivered.

 _That should be me,_ she thought.

He held out one shaky hand, and she took it, carefully twinning their fingers. "It's not terrible, though," he said.

Lynn frowned because she knew he was lying, or at least not telling her the whole truth. He gave her hand a reassuring squeeze and offered her a wan smile that she returned. "Do you want dinner?" she asked.

"Yeah," he said, "I-I could eat."

She lifted his hand to her lips and kissed it, then got up and went to the pantry, where she rummaged through a line of cans. "Chicken noodle, clam chowder, or split pea?" she asked over her shoulder.

"Uhhh...split pea."

Plucking the can up, she crossed to the stove, grabbed the pot from the drying rack, and turned on the range. "You should go sit on the couch," she said, "you'll be more comfortable."

"I'm okay here," he said and leaned back in his chair. "The headache's worst part."

"There're painkillers in Lisa's bag, I think," she said and opened the can, then dumped it in. "Do you want me to get you one?"

He was quiet for a moment. "Yeah," he said.

Leaving the soup, she went into the bedroom, running her hand affectionately over Lincoln's shoulder as she passed. She got the bag from its spot by the nightstand and sat on the edge of the bed, then opened it, sifting through the many bottles before finding one labeled NOVRIL. Didn't Lisa have a notebook in here too? With information on each medication? She looked for and found it, sitting the bag aside. "Can you stir the soup?" she called.

"Yeah," Lincoln replied.

Turning the lantern on the nightstand up, she flipped through page after page of her sister's handwriting before coming across one headed NOVRIL. _Codeine based_ _analgesic painkiller._ _Take one 200mg tablet by every twelve hours as needed. DO NOT EXCEED 200MG. FATAL._

Fatal.

Lynn shivered.

Returning the bag, she got up and went into the kitchen; Lincoln stood at the stove stirring the soup, a vision of domestic normalcy that was both comforting and grotesque at the same time. Her step faltered, then she went to him, her hand going to the small of his back. "Smells good," she said with a smile.

"Just like grandma used to make." He glanced at the empty can, then at Lynn. "Grandma was a lazy cook."

She chuckled at his joke and pushed up on her tiptoes to kiss his forehead. "You're still a dork."

"And I'm still okay with that."

She hummed. "So am I."

She went over to the sink, twisted the cap off, and sat it aside, shaking one pill into her hand and grabbing a bottle of water. "I'll take over," she said as she handed them to Lincoln.

"Get outta here," he said and gulped the tablet, chasing it with water. "I'm doing it."

She grinned. "You think?"

Staring her defiantly in the eye, he swirled the wooden spoon through the soup. "You're asking for it, mister," she said playfully. She took the handle of the spoon and shoved in front of him, her butt grinding against his crotch. She glanced at him over her shoulder and smiled smugly. When he put his hands on her hips, she jumped and cried out. "Oh, no, you're _not_ making me burn dinner like you made me burn breakfast."

"Yes I am," he said and kissed her neck.

"I will hit you with this spoon."

His hands crept over her stomach and his lips grazed her ear, the hot puff of his breath against her skin turning her on.

"Do it," he said, "I like being beaten."

They looked at each other...then burst out laughing. When Lincoln's face crinkled in pain, Lynn's spirits dropped, and cold reality swept in. They weren't a happy couple living in their own apartment and waiting to start a family, they were a brother and sister hiding above a hardware store and waiting to die.

"You okay?" she asked.

He nodded. "Yeah, just my knee." He shuffled over to the table and sat down, sucking a sharp intake of breath through his teeth.

Lynn turned away and blinked back tears. She'd seen two of her sisters slowly succumb to the plague, and she knew enough to tell that in two days, tops, Lincoln would where Lisa was the day they stopped at Fatboy's: Delirious, dying, and shivering with the cold of the coming night.

She didn't think she could stand seeing that happen again.

Not to Lincoln.

She looked around, at the walls and furniture; she wanted to live a lie, to make believe that everything was okay and that she and Lincoln had all the time in the world to live and to love, but the end was hurting at her like an extinction-causing asteroid.

She liked cooking for him and lazily cuddling him in bed, sitting with him on the couch and staring at him from across the table as he ate. She didn't want it to end...she wanted to be his wife and having his children and grow old with him. She wanted them to have a life together.

But none of those things would come to pass. Death nestled in his bones like a slumbering bat coming slowly but irreversibly awake, and sooner or later, it would overtake him, overtake _them_.

Drawing a heavy sigh, she stirred the soup and tapped the spoon on the edge of the pot.

It was done.

They ate in silence, Lynn sitting on Lincoln's lap and feeding him like a baby, a tender smile on her face. Affection burned in her chest, and she stopped often to kiss him and run her fingers through his hair. Afterwards, they snuggled on the couch, Lynn's head and hand resting on his sizzling chest. "I really like this," she said.

"So do I," he replied.

"I wish we had longer."

He kissed her forehead. "Me too."

For a long time neither of them spoke, then Lincoln pulled away and swiped the back of his hand across his forehead. "I'm really hot," he said cumbersomely. "I-I need some air."

"Alright," Lynn said. She got up, took him by the hand, and led him to the roof: The night was cool, the moon shining against the hazy sky. An outcropping jutted from the parapet, and they sat together, her hand creeping into his. In the moonlight, his face was drawn, gray, and his eyes were liquid black. Looking at him, it was easy to believe that he was dead already; a shudder went though her, and she whined miserably in the back of her throat.

Lincoln looked at her and darted his eyes to his lap. "I really wish you wouldn't do this," he said. "I-I wish you'd go. Find someone else, start a family - "

"I don't want someone else," she said. "And I don't want a family without you." She squeezed his hand and looked into his eyes. "I love you and I wanted us to have a life together. And babies." Her face screwed up and more tears, hateful tears, spilled down her cheeks. "But we can't have it and I don't want it with anyone else."

Lincoln frowned deeply and slipped his arm around her shoulder. "I'm sorry, Lynn," he said, "I'm so sorry."

For a long time, they held each other and listened to the night - the wind in the trees, the distant moaning of the living dead, the near inaudible hiss of the Potomac. "We should do it tonight," she said, and didn't have to elaborate. It was unspoken between them, and had been since the night before. The words came hard, and were bitter on her lips. The unfairness of their situation struck her full force, and her lips puckered.

Lincoln took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I-If you want to."

"I don't," she said and squeezed his hand.

"Neither do I."

In the bedroom, Lincoln pulled out of his shirt and tossed it aside; ugly purple splotches covered his back, and Lynn looked pointedly away as she crossed to the bed and sat, a bottle of water in one hand and a bottle of pills in the other. She stared numbly down at them, her eyes going from one to the other and her stomach knotting with dread.

This was it.

She looked at the photo on the nightstand, her and all of her siblings smiling at the camera. She had Lincoln in a headlock, her balled fist hovering inches above his scalp. Luna watched them from the corner of her eye with a sly grin, and Luan leaned forward, hands clasped on her knees. The latter died in a field in Virginia a lifetime ago, and the former died in a grocery store in Ohio in another century.

Almost everyone in that picture died because of her.

Shaking, she untwisted the cap and sat it aside. Lincoln sat behind her, his hand on her back,, his touch limp, cold. She shook the bottle, and white capsules flooded her hand, some spilling over and littering the floor. She looked at him over her shoulder. "Are you ready?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

Lincoln shook his head. "No."

He held out his hand.

She dropped a dozen pills, maybe more, into his palm, then tossed a dozen more into her mouth. She unscrewed the water bottle and took a drink, then handed it to him. He did the same.

 _Voices, a thousand, thousand voices_

 _Whispering, the time has passed for choices_

 _Golden days are passing over,_

Lynn splayed her hand on Lincoln's chest and pushed him gently back against the pillow; the light scattered shadows across his face and pooled darkness in his eyes. He swallowed hard and watched as she straddled him, his breath catching slightly when his tip raked across her silken lower lips.

Outside the window, the first faint strands of dawn colored the eastern sky pale orange, and the sound of early birdsong drifted through the open window. Lincoln stared up at her with muted longing, and she returned his gaze, a single tear spilling from the corner of her eye and dribbling down her cheek. She laid her hands on his shoulders and ran them down over his chest, her palms tracing the outline of his developing pecs and her fingertips kissing his warm flesh. He lifted his hands to her hips and stroked them up her flanks, his nails grazing her skin and sending electric shivers into her center.

 _I can't seem to see you baby_

 _Although my eyes are open wide_

 _But I know I'll see you once more_

 _When I see you, I'll see you on the other side_

Another tear joined the first, twinkling like diamonds in moonlight. She caressed his cheek and gazed into his watery eyes, a sad frown touching her lips. She shifted and guided him to her opening, then settled slowly, taking his length with the unhurried leisure of a woman approaching the gallows. Her cheeks started to burn hot as he scraped along her walls, her body molding around him like a glove to a hand, his body fitting perfectly into hers, two puzzle pieces locking together with a breathy sigh. Lincoln cupped her breasts in his hands and made circles against her nipples with his thumbs, the delicate heat of his touch sending goosebumps up and down her arms. She threw her head back, swallowed thickly, and closed her eyes, trying to focus on now, on being here with him alive and whole, on their shared celebration of life and love, but the knowledge that his time was short, and hers too, lay heavy upon her, and more tears tracked down her face, splashing onto his hands and her breast.

 _Leaving, I hate to see you cry_

 _Grieving, I hate to say goodbye_

 _Dust and ash forever_

Fluttering her hands to his and pressing, her heart throbbing sickly against his palm, she lifted herself up, her breathing coming faster as his rod massaged her aching walls, then brought herself back down, their pelvises pushing together as she took him all the way to the opening of her womb. She lowered her head and met his eyes, then lifted his hand to her lips and placed a tender kiss on his wound. "I'm sorry," she whispered, and kissed it again. Tears blurred her vision and she bowed her head in sorrow.

Lincoln pulled away and touched her cheek, his touch soft and affectionate. She rolled her eyes up to look at him like a shame-faced little girl; he frowned deeply and moved his thumb lazily over her chin. "It's not your fault," he said, "none of it's your fault. You did all you could…"

"I didn't do good enough," she said and glanced down at his stomach. "I got everyone killed." She squeezed her eyes closed and fought back the coming storm, her body clamping painfully around him. "I was stupid and careless. I killed our family, Linc. I killed them all." Her bottom lip quivered. "I killed you."

 _Though I know we must be parted_

 _As sure as stars are in the sky_

 _I'm gonna see when it comes to glory_

Lincoln's hands slipped through her hair and he pulled her to his chest; she resisted at first, then allowed herself to be guided, wincing as his member shifted inside of her. She hid her face in the crook of his neck and slipped her arm around his neck, holding onto him as if in defiance of the waiting Reaper. He held her close and stroked her naked back, his lips touching her ear and kissing, his warm breath soothing. His flesh burned with fever, and Lynn hugged tighter as though she could absorb his sickness like a sponge. "You kept us alive long after everyone else was dead," he whispered, "you gave me two months I wouldn't have had without you. And -" here his voice hitched with emotion. "And the two most beautiful days I could have ever asked for. I love you so much, and I don't want you to blame yourself. I don't. Luan doesn't. Luna doesn't. If they're...still out there somewhere...watching...they don't blame you. Those things are the end of us. We tried to stand, but we all fell down instead. You did something eight billion other people couldn't, and I thank God for you."

Lynn swallowed her tears and lifted her head; their faces hovered inches apart, their eyes matching shades of mourning. He brushed her bangs from her face held her gaze. "I love you, Lynn."

"I love you too, Lincoln," she said and caressed his cheek.

 _Never thought I'd feel like this_

 _Strange to be alone_

 _But we'll be together_

 _Carved in stone, carved in stone, carved in stone_

Weaving her fingers through his and squeezing, Lynn pressed their foreheads together and began to rock her hips; tears fell from her eyes and landed on his cheeks, mingling with his as surely as their passion mingled below. Their lips touched; she breathed out and he breathed in, their bodies moving faster now, hers stroking, his thrusting. She kissed him deeply, and he kissed her back, taking her face in his hands and arching his back, touching the opening of her womb. She broke away and tilted her head back; tears streamed down her face but she wasn't aware of them, only of the tingling sensations flowing through her. Lincoln kissed her throat, the side of her neck, her shoulder, his hips lifting faster, his pelvis slapping against hers and pushing her closer to the edge.

Lowering her head, she stared down into his eyes, her fingers creeping through his hair. "I love you, Lincoln," she said.

"I love you too, Lynn," he said and took both of her hands. "I wouldn't trade the last two months for anything."

"Neither would I," she admitted and kissed him.

Everything she had in her body was drawn gradually to her center, her orgasm growing and growing, expanding against her stomach until her eyes narrowed and her teeth clamped her lower lip. WIth one final upward jerk, Lincoln wrapped his arms around her, pulled her to his chest, and swelled against her walls. He released,, shooting deep into her core, and the ball in her stomach went supernova; blinding white light filled her world, so hot and intense that her entire body seized and she screamed his name with abandon. He moaned hers as he pumped another volley into her waiting body, and she had never heard it more beautiful in her life.

Falling limp against him, she fought to catch her breath but couldn't; he held her tight as he gasped for air himself, his heart slamming against hers. Vertigo filled her head, and the room turned back and forth, threatening to send her flying. She rolled off and lay on her back, her hand clawing the sheet as panic burst against her chest. When she felt Lincoln's fingers grazing her knuckles, she grabbed on and squeezed.

 _Hold me, hold me tight, I'm falling_

 _Far away. Distant voices calling_

 _I'm so cold. I need you darling_

The throbbing fear in her chest slowly subsided, replaced by warm numbness. She shifted onto her side and threw her arm over his chest, her leg over his; each limb weighed a thousand pounds, and she lifted them only with great, clumsy difficulty. Weariness came upon her, and her eyelids started to droop. She was sinking, she realized with detachment, and once she went under, there would be no coming back. She would disappear into the darkness.

Lincoln put his arm around her and she scooted up just enough to lay her head over his heart; each movement felt as though she were falling.

"It wasn't enough," she said through tingling lips - the urge to cry was there, and strong, but no tears came. "I wanted more time with you."

 _I was down, but now I'm flying_

 _Straight across the great divide_

 _I know you're crying, but I'll stop you crying_

 _When I see you, I see you on the other side_

He didn't speak for what seemed like a long time, and when he did, the sound of his voice pulled her back from the warm, comforting embrace of sleep. "I know." His voice was slurred, barely a mumble. He squeezed her hand - weakly. "But after this...we have forever."

Lynn smiled tiredly. That _did_ sound nice. "I love you," she said.

"I love you too. And I always will."

"I'll find you," she promised.

"Forever," he repeated and slowly, ponderously, stroked his hand up and down her arm. "I won't let you go."

"Please don't."

Darkness stole over her vision, and her brain dipped below the surface like a drowning woman. Her eyes began to ring, and she felt so warm...so safe...

"I-I won't."

Content in the knowledge that she and Lincoln would have forever, Lynn smiled…

...and drifted to sleep.


End file.
